There was a woman with an ecclesiastic body.
I found out I was just one member of its congregation.
She was a soothsayer when the lights were down,
When she proved she was a succubus -
But what the ****, I've never been a saint.
She put the screws to me.

She used to belong to another man.
Now she's putting me through my paces.
If I had paid attention to the signs,
I could have seen my fate before it happened.

There was this dude I knew who was hard pressed.
I thought I might could offer him a place to crash for awhile,
So he could get his **** together.
Apparently demons have an appetite for gutter ****.

They took a ride in my ride,
And didn't forget my checkbook.
They didn't neglect to clean my house
Of nearly everything inside.
It was just a reminder,
Cause it really ain't no surprise.

That there's a burning lake
And gnashing on flesh,
Yeah, it's nothing but any empty, cold black well.
It's a Godless place,
You're on your own.
There ain't no honor among thieves.
Remember this,
There are no friends in Hell.

There are accusations to bring me down,
It's like I'm already dead.
They throw down their gauntlets,
They make every pledge.
I don't trust a word they say.
They're liers and deceivers.
All they want is whatever they can get.

They prey on fools and their believers.
They'll prophesy, then pass you by
Unless you've got an edge,
The dusty demons, dryer than a dessert segde.

They took a ride in my ride,
And didn't forget my checkbook.
They didn't neglect to clean my house
Of nearly everything inside.
It's just a reminder, but it really ain't no surprise.

That there's a burning lake
And gnashing on flesh,
Yeah, it's nothing but any empty, cold black well.
It's a Godless place,
You're on your own.
There ain't no honor among thieves.
Remember this,
There are no friends in Hell.

She never failed to cause me woe.
But, I'm not an innocent soul.
I guess what goes around,
Comes back around.
When it's harvest time, they'll know,
They done ****** with the wrong one.
Everybody reaps what they sow.

They took a ride in my ride,
And didn't forget my checkbook.
They didn't neglect to clean my house
Of nearly everything inside.
It's just a reminder, but it really ain't no surprise.

That there's a burning lake
And gnashing on flesh,
Yeah, it's nothing but any empty, cold black well.
It's a Godless place,
You're on your own.
There ain't no honor among thieves.
Remember this,
There are no friends in Hell

There is no such thing as kindness here.
I'll save troubles for another day,
They only multiply.

The more I see, the more I know
That strumpets belong with urchins.
They never will know,
Until they are each other's paroxysm,
But even then, they won't care.

No good deed is without a price to pay.

They took a ride in my ride,
And didn't forget my checkbook.
They didn't neglect to clean my house
Of nearly everything inside.
It's just a reminder, but it really ain't no surprise.

That there's a burning lake
And gnashing on flesh,
Yeah, it's nothing but any empty, cold black well.
It's a Godless place,
You're on your own.
There ain't no honor among thieves.
Remember this,
There are no friends in Hell.

There is no need to dwell on the exterior cliche of an injured soldier, the propaganda is superficial. Civilians have only plastic green men, heavy dusty movie set costumes, and Army-of-One heroes to populate stereotypes. Keep your images larger than life, no use touching up a paint-by-number. Mine was banal, foolish, and 19; enough said.

One fence is the fraternity itself, the next is brain injury. No other way to understand but be there. A Solid-American-Made-Dashboard cracked my forehead at 45mph.
Crumpling into the footwell,
unaware that the flatbed's rear bumper
was smashing thru the passenger windshield above me
the frame stopped just shy of decapitating my luckily unoccupied seat.
Our vehicle's monstrous hood had attempted to murderously bury us under,
but the axle stopped momentum's fate and ended the carnage under dark iron.
Shards of my identity joined the slow, pulverized, airborn chaos.
Back, Deep, Gone.

Unconsciousness is the brain's frantic attempt to re-wire neurons, jury rig broken connections, the doctor's desperate attempt to re-attach, stand back and say, good enough. Essential systems limply functioned, but unessential ones were ditched. Years later a military doctor diagnosed an eventual triage: Hypothalimus disconnected from the Pituitary Gland, Executive Function damaged, long pathways for emotional regulation interrupted.

I woke up still kinda bleeding, crusty blood in my hair, a line of frankenstein stitches wandering across my forehead.   My sense of self had literally dissolved into morning dust floating in a sterile hospital sunbeam.  My name was down the hall, words and the desire to speak were on a different floor.  Life became me and also a separate me under constant renovation, a wrecking ball on one half, scaffolding and raw 2x4's the other.

Waking up in the hospital, I realized I needed help to get the blood cleaned up.   A nurse came in, largely glared at me in disregard, and quickly left… for an hour.   She returned and brusquely dropped a useless ace comb and gauze on the blanket over my feet and abandoned me again.  This was my introduction to the shame of a VA hospital.  I minced my way to the bathroom, objectively examined my face in the mirror with shocking stitches above one swollen eye.  Gingerly rinsing my hair, the water ran pink in white porcelain.  I remembered the sound in my skull between my ears when a doctor scraped a metal tool across my skull, cleaning debris before stitching.  I recalled that in the ER I was asking Is he ok, repeating it like a broken record, knowing I should stop but I couldn’t.  There was also perhaps a joke about an Excedrin headache.

It was morning, and since there was no such thing as time or purpose or feelings anymore, I wandered to the hall with my only companion, the IV pole. One side was a wall of windows, and I was, what, 10 or 12 stories up from the streets of a much larger city than where I crashed.  The hall was warm and sunny.  I wheeled my companion to a blocky square vinyl chair to sit next to a pay phone.  I didn’t have any thoughts at all, or care about it.   After about an hour my first name floated up from the void, then with some effort my last name.  It took the rest of the morning to remember I had a brother.  After lunch we resumed our post, and I spent the afternoon in concentration piecing together his phone number.  God had pushed the reset button.

Thirty years ago the doctors didn't understand head injuries; they only recognized the physical symptoms. At first there was good reason to be permanently admitted to the hospital.  My blood pressure was unstable, sometimes so low that drawing blood for tests caused my veins to collapse even with baby needles.  My thyroid had shut down completely, only jump-started again with six months of Synthroid.  I had to learn to live with crashing blood sugar and fluctuating appetite.  For years afterwards, any stress would cause arrhythmias, my heart filling and skipping out of sync, blood pressure popping my skull.  Will the clock stop this time?  

There is always at least one momentous event in every person’s life that becomes punctuation, before and after.  The other side of Before the accident truly was a different me.  I have a vague recollection of who that person may have been, and occasionally get reminders.   Before, I was getting recruiting letters from Ivy League colleges and MIT, a high school senior at sixteen.  After, I couldn’t balance a checkbook or even care about a savings account in the first place.  Before, I had aced the military entrance exam only missing one question, even including the speed math section.  They told me I could chose any rating I wanted, so I chose Air Traffic Control.  Twenty years later, I thumbed through old high school yearbooks at a reunion.   I saw a picture of me in the Shakespeare Club, not recalling what that could have been about.   On finding a picture of me in the Ski Club I thought, Wow, I guess I know how to ski.   A yellowed small-town newspaper article noted I was one of two National Merit Scholars; and in another there’s a mention of a part in the High School Musical.  

This side of After, I kept mixing right with left, was dyslexic with numbers, and occasionally stuttered with word soup.  Focus became separated from willpower, concentration was like herding cats.  The world had become intense.

(chapter 1 continues in memoir)

Falling in love is dangerous. For when you fall in love, you pay a price. A price so unrealistic that you simply cannot pull out your checkbook and write down "here is my everything, please handle with care, very fragile" and expect it to cover the debt. No. You give your heart and your soul. Your mind is always cluttered with thoughts of them. Your body tingles when you hear their voice. You become addicted and you expect more and more, so you keep paying until one day, there's nothing left. You're completely theirs and your definition of home…begins with their name.

And just thinking about that is terrifyingly beautiful. Something could happen, and all that will be left of you are tears and a cracked voice to match the holes that cover the walls. Now there is no place to call home, you gave them everything. Someday you will be asked the question of what they returned and you'll reply: "they gave enough to make it seem like a lifetime of happiness, and more importantly, that feeling of love…was infinite."

In the end, there would be pain and you knew this, but you still them your all. You are stronger than you think and believe me when I say you will regain your all back.

Falling in love is dangerous, but you cannot stop it, you cannot slow it down, and you cannot escape it. So it's understandable to be scared, but just know it's okay to take that fall…especially for him.

Five summers, four lovers
and three checkbooks ago,
I've been here, as I am today.
Same corner, same shade of gloomy day,
and about the same volume of falling rain,
still a one-call-away favorite friend of pain.
Only now I am much more
clever and conniving,
more calculating
and dare I say,
more frightening.
My approaching steps are the pitter-patter
of the storm starting,
the thundering warning of my arrival
is Manila's hour rushing.
Words from my lips
are news you'd rather miss,
however I can't say the same
about my infamous kiss.
I am older, and longer are my to-do lists.
My patience is longer,
but my heart no longer sighs or beats.

My Father's mother wrote me a check
And though she has a checkbook
with her name on it
From four years ago,
She sent me the decadent sum
of twenty-five dollars
On a slip of paper with a name
that was of her husband,
My Father's Father,
And still is.

When I look at this check pinned to my wall
I am reminded of the man,
The eighteen-wheeling man,
And how a few years ago I was afraid
and unamused
So I did not peek into his open casket.

It was a year since I had seen him,
And 'goodbye' escaped my lips (which were sealed
incredibly) until he was lowered.

I hope he went to heaven; if he did not
I am sure I will say 'hello'
After I cash this check,
But not yet.

By Bob Englehart
(based on a true story)


Ben Hogan was the strongest man.
The game had ever seen,
The purest golfer in the world,
Who’d ever graced a green.

He had one dream and only one:
To play a perfect round,
Eighteen glorious holes-in-one
Before he’s in the ground.

One day a wealthy patron,
The richest man in town,
Said “Ben, I’ll tell you what I’ll do,
If you play that perfect round.

I’ll give you a million dollars,
More than fifty grand a stroke.
If you can do what no man’s done.”
Said Ben “Is this a joke?”

“Let’s do it now” the man said.
“Lets have a little fun.”
“OK”, said Ben.  “I’ll get my clubs.”
And they walked to number one.

He put his ball down on the tee,
The turf was Kentucky Blue.
He squared his body to the plane,
And swooped his follow-through.

Oh, he started on the first one,
And heaved his mighty whack!
It rolled onto the high side
And dribbled in the back.

The next one was a dogleg,
He waved the crowd away,
The gallery was silent now,
The trees began to sway.

A little breeze had risen up,
He put his club back in,
And took out something with less loft
And a little more backspin.

He hit it with a wallop!
It carved into the wind,
It chose a path below the wrath
And bounced and rolled.  It’s in.

The third one was a downhill,
With water on the left,
A line of trees behind the stream
And sand traps hard and wet.

Ol’ Ben let go a low one,
It swallowed up the air,
And blew right through an apple tree,
A peach tree and a pear.

That ball had so much on it,
Though it hardly did rise up,
It scattered rocks and leaves and dust
‘Til it rolled into the cup.

Its cover had unraveled,
Ben bent to lift it out.
He gave it to his caddy
Who gave a mighty shout.

Number four and five the same,
Perfection every shot,
Six through nine were ones apiece.
He was thirsty now and hot.

Number ten, the toughest hole
The golf course had on tap,
A double-dogleg, raised up green,
And a bunker called The Trap.

The Trap was a crater in the ground,
With a rope to climb on down,
And a flashlight on the bottom sand,
By a skull some golfer’d found.

Ol’ Ben just squinted skyward,
And lifted up his chin,
“I want to try to make this shot
Before the darkness settles in.”

He came down through that golf ball,
With a smile of purest pleasure,
And it headed for The Trap at speeds
Impossible to measure.

It dipped into the chasm,
And headed for the gloom,
It plunged down deep in the abyss
‘Til it hadn’t any room.

It hit the skull like a bullet,
Some bone was blown clean off,
Out the top of the Trap it flew
And lined up with the moss.

It rolled two hundred yards or so,
And headed for the cup,
And dropped in with a gentle plop
With its logo facing up.

Eleven, twelve and thirteen,
Were handled much the same,
You couldn’t hold a candle to him,
When Ben was on his game.

The next four holes were all alike,
The ones that came before,
All holes-in-one were on his card,
No twos were on his score.

He strolled up to the eighteenth tee,
His heart was beating loud.
He put his fingers to his lips,
And quieted the crowed.

The last one was a short one,
A straight-ahead par three
There were no hazards anywhere,
No sand trap, pond or tree.

“This should be a snap, ol’ sport”
The patron said as he looked.
He reached into his pocket,
And got out his checkbook.

Ben hit the ball without a tee,
A divot flopped in front,
The ball flew forward to the rough
Like a major-leaguers’ bunt.

It straightened out and bounded for
The cup which was dead ahead,
His target clearly right on line,
“Draino,” the patron said.

But deep inside that little hole,
In the center of the green,
A bug was singing courtship songs
That filled the round ravine.

And on the edge…above him,
His girl bug sat and giggled,
And fluttered sixteen eyelids
Her antennae bobbed and jiggled.

The ball snuck up behind her,
It didn’t see her charms,
And it knocked her off the slippery edge
Right into her boy bug’s arms.

The ball stopped when it hit her.
It wouldn’t moved an inch.
The patron’s eyes popped real wide,
Ben Hogan didn’t flinch.

Ben couldn’t know the truth of it,
He only knew he failed.
He took it all upon himself,
And stomped the ground and wailed.

Other dreams would have to wait.
He couldn’t rest until
He turned around and headed back
To the first tee on the hill.

They say his ghost’s still out there
And on moonlit nights you’ll hear
The pounding of his irons
Against the dimpled sphere.

Ever since I can remember, Barbara has been coming to our home
With her poofy hair and her powdered cheeks, all in a cloud of pink perfume.
She would speak in the fragile, broken voice of a woman well beyond her years,
And Mother would beckon her cheerfully to sit at the table in our dining room.

With whatever coffee was in the *** and whatever Danish found,  
Mother would prepare the table and invite my older sister and I to gather round.
From noon to three they’d gab and chat and flip through the catalogues
That Barbara the Avon Lady had brought.

My sister and I would thumb through glossy, vibrant pages
Of blushes and eye shadows, eyeliners and mascaras.
But I, I would thumb quickly and tire even faster
At the conversation of the table that awaited me, inevitably, after.

With feigned interest, I would sit there a bit
And watch as my older sister would, more patiently, fake it.

I’d grab a cookie and then leave
Mother with her checkbook and her bitter black coffee,
Barbara with her perfume cloud and cheeks all porcelain powdery,
And my sister, with her blonde hair, which was just like mine,
But which tried, much harder to grow much faster.
Yes I would flounce away with my neck-length locks,
And go play with my younger brother.

That silly flood made me
Tread all the way down
Here.  
Political pensions over.
Spent on pens and ties.  
Bipartisanship is basically
A commandment now.  They’re
Only there because they have to be, I say.  
They would send relief,
Should I wait a week so the
Check don’t bounce? I
Know how that goes. They
Got a profit on us anyway.
They’re checkbook turned to
Chicken scratch, more like chicken ****.
We’ll see how that goes.
At least I got time to locate
My house that floated off its
Hinges a few miles south.  


*Note: these next poems I’m posting are going to be more political because it’s a project I am writing for a conference.