Foul
Play
(For R.G.)
In
old Westerns, the fighters take turns:
Punch, fall, get up; punch, fall, get up.
Old-fashioned duelists exchanged shots,
Polite as priests queuing to kiss
The
Bishop's hand. Soldiers at Bull Run
Traded volleys in formation, toppling
In tidy rows back when war was manly
Virtues on parade: Courage, Duty,
Chivalry--ideas
dated as chain mail
And the blunderbuss. We moderns know
There are no "level playing fields."
Someone always bribes the judge, takes
Sneakier
drugs, tapes brass knuckles to his hands.
The guy who yelled, "Gimme your money,
Chump, "didn't give you a gun like his
To make it fair, didn't hand over his date
As
he raped yours. He didn't come
To counseling with you, share your nightmares,
Pay for your pistol lessons, call to offer you
A rematch "any time." Only in old Westerns
Does
Right prevail, trading haymakers
With Wrong until Wrong grabs a chair
And pulls a gun, whereupon Right knocks him
Over a saloon table--Blam!--into a wall
Down
which he slides and lies still, bleeding
Just a little from the nose--not dead,
Brain-damaged, paralyzed--actually soothed
By songbirds twittering above his stubbled chin.
--Charles
Harper Webb
Copyright © 2000 by Free Lunch Arts Alliance
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