The Gorko Gazette

PALM SUNDAY

A short fat man
steps out of a postal van

Classic rural Wisconsin
Shattered corn stalks
in an old brown snow

A hundred acre wood
Shorn bare of leaves
Pin oak, birch, white ash

Mid March

A farm boy
pausing work feeding young
post-suckling calves
Spies the postal man
Urinating next to his truck

The man thinks no one can see him
Assuming the traditional pose
One arm bent, hand on hip.
Gazing with pleasure at the naked
expanse of empty fields.

---

THE SITUATION

Old man playing chess
The end of a long day of labor

Son
and then grandsons

trying to keep up
Hoping this isn’t
Some kind of revenge

against whatever world grandpa
Has drawn straws.

Knight to B6

We are the smitten
In the Roman arena

Advance a pawn. See what happens.
Eight years old and not yet breeched

Three generations face off
On a lonely Friday night

We talk about it later.
The old man had to win
The old man had to win.

---

MY EIGHTH YEAR

had a lot of death in it

My paternal grandfather
Old retired Methodist pastor
Took me to a cold Friday night football game once
I was too short to see the game
Folks standing, stamping feet,
trying to stay warm.

He had a heart attack early in my eighth year.

Maternal grandfather?
Died when my mother was eight.
Lots of death at that early age.

My nearly rural neighborhood
didn’t have a lot of choice
when it came
to playmates.

So Chris became my best friend
Always always getting me in trouble.
His old man was a GI
War II
Brought home a pretty English bride
Not a happy marriage on Moore Street.

Stupid crazy Chris, aged eight
Coming home from Devil’s Lake
when his bike tire went flat

Decided to fix it in the road
Sun setting
Illinois camping family
Just driving into town
Blinded by the glare
Killed that boy instantly.

GI dad, coming home from the lake
fishing without his son
was first on the scene.

My mother invited the horrified
heartbroken Illinois campers to supper.
Supposed to be
some kind of closure for me?

---

about the artist

Bruce Gee Son of Bayard, middle named Bayard. Spent his life searching for the meaning of Bayard. Raised a quiver of young ‘un. No regrets.

Image generated on Stable Diffusion 2- 1

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