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Geno Cattouse  Dec 2012
Gladiator
Geno Cattouse Dec 2012
The Brute in me is a gleeful beast.
The Trog is older now and mellow.Yet. Pull up a chair.
Just a minute of your time if you will. Sometimes,
I watch  him  ooze  through the pores of my skin and he stands there.

Myself and he apart
He always  walks down to the river's edge where I always find
him skipping stones. skipping stones and staring at the far bank.
He does not see me or it seems so. This never changed for years.
After some time in reverie,he turns and walks by me.
I can smell the potent odor of his sweat.
The brute is me at twenty three.

Later still he returns to his dimension
deep within my past,
Wordless, yes until one day.
The beast  looked  over his shoulder mid toss


A stone skipped and tipped the  universal
constants.

Pulling a pistol from thin air he shot me at point blank.
Two head, one heart. A bit of a start not mention
That was a bit rude but not out of character for me
at that age. No no don't get me wrong.The impulsive side
Not the homicide
Suicide. Hellofa ride.

Well. Well without further discussion, we casually
Walked back to the house an split a bottle of Stoli's
And. Watched MMA bloodletting on cable T.V.
About an hour later she slipped
Yuri Andropov into the conversation:
“I have to drop off a blouse at the dry cleaners.”
Suddenly it was May Day &
I’m back in Red Square,
Dwarfed beneath larger than life
Lenin, Engels & Marx mug shots.
Inter-continental ballistic lorry loads
Roll past the reviewing stand, while
Geezer Reds in Ushanka fur hats,
****** on Stoli, reeking of borscht,
Chain-smoke cheap Soviet Belomors.
I share these thoughts, handing
Mrs. Khrushchev the car keys.
Having cowered herself in terror,
Having ducked & covered many
Burial promises & shoe-pound threats,
She gives me a tired babushka smirk.
We are conjugal Cold Warriors,
Both weary now, creeping up on 70,
Skirmishes & brinksmanship behind us.
Tolerant of each other at last;
Lukewarm détente between us.