TRIPWIRE
A child grows up in an airless apartment
and hears
screaming and shouting, relatives
visiting, long abandoned by their mother ship.
Sideshow.
My father hides behind a newspaper
defunct
The New York Journal American
while his sister stands, moans, keens,
cursed as she thinks by her marriage
by a life of badly dealt hands
inveighing against a God she cannot credence
and a fate unknown but malevolent.
Personal offense is everywhere.
My father, immured behind Walter Winchell,
tries not to speak.
Maybe they both had it right.
No words are innocuous.
All words are treacherous,
carry the venomous bite
without an antidote.
I learned that at home or I should have.
I am a slow study.
Now and again I get to audit
a refresher course in
The Dialectic of the Universe of Offense.
Every word throws you into No Man's Land
knowing only the mines are there
but not where they've buried the tripwires.
Step on a wire and you're likely to be blown up.
Sexual intercoursed without the sex.
Watch how grown-ups behave--feeling hit,
hitting back, kids in the playground,
"Teechur he sed a bad thing!"
"Mommy he start it!"
To be truly offensive you have to
stumble over a hidden wire and blow your
ass off before you know what happened.
Name your favorite offense.
Plant your tripwire.
Choose what you hate and seek it out.
Be patient, someone will come.
Just know that one day
it will be your turn
because whoever long ago dreamed up Fortune's Wheel
nailed it, the cycle,
and I--or someone--will be there
to be offended.
KTW/4-20-05
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Kenneth Wolman www.kenwolman.com kenwolman.blogspot.com
"A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank balance was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove...but the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child."
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