IMAGE OF EARTH AND QUILL

Guest Poet Michael Pollick


Kill the King, Leo

It is night again,
And my grandmother June
And my great-
Hunchbacked
Uncle Leo are playing
Poker again.

The water is undrinkable here,
Unless you douse it
With Kool-aid,
Or better yet-
Forget the water and go
Straight to whiskey,
As my grandmother June
And my great-
Hunchbacked
Uncle Leo are doing
As they play poker again.

We are so small tonight,
My brother and me,
And hunkered down low
In our cousin's bed
To avoid my Grandmother June
And my Great-
Hunchbacked
Uncle Leo as they slowly die,
(Drunk and alone),
As they play poker downstairs
Again.

'This is the King, Leo!
You know what you must do to the King,
Don't you?
This is the King.
You've got to kill it, Leo...'

'Oou dunk, joon.
I not gau ta kill
the king.
Oou dunk, joon.'

'Leo, gawd damn you-
It's the damn King,
And if you don't kill
The son-of-a-bitch,
I will, gawd damn you.'

'Oou tarred, joon.
Oou go bed now
I wan to see the moo tows.'
(moo cows)

And so the King did not die
That night,
Nor any other night
That my Grandmother June
And my Great-
Hunchbacked
Uncle Leo played poker
And drank whiskey,
Dead and alone
Downstairs in the kitchen.

It was years before I learned
That my grandmother June's
First and only king,
James,
Was shot on patrol in 1944,
While making Western Pennsylvania
Safe for unemployed coal miners
And alcohol salesmen.

So one night I went downstairs,
And played penny poker with my
Grandmother June,
And my late, Great-
Hunchbacked
Uncle Leo,
And this time the King was spared
By a grandson
Who knew
The
Score...

October 1997

Michael Pollick's Questions:

Here is a submission for possible critique entitled 'Kill the King, Leo'

I plan to submit this poem to a few markets, and need some professional advice and criticism. My biggest question is Does the 'explanatory' section at the end of the poem detract from the first stanzas? Does anything pull the reader's focus? Thank you for the opportunity to share this work.


Correspond with Michael Pollick at
phaedrus65@hotmail.com
with your ideas about this poem.


The Albany Poetry Workshop