Yes, I see what you mean, Doug, about how The Grip could be taken as 'somewhat funny'. I suppose that is how finding yourself thrust into violence can feel. Even outside, in wet and dark, with physical damage a sudden likelihood. What I was trying to get across was the unlikeliness (naivete?) of the 'I' being involved such a situation and yet here he was.
Bill
> On 5 Jun 2014, at 12:41 am, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> A tale told by a fighter not really, eh?
>
> On the whole it felt like a bit of a tall tale, a somewhat funny on, but for that 'at the death of the night'...?
>
> Doug
>> On Jun 3, 2014, at 3:46 PM, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> The grip
>>
>> Am I in a fight?
>> How did this happen?
>> Latent rippling neck strength
>> threatening to u n c o i l
>> from under my pinioning arm.
>>
>> 'Get them out,' Tara had said
>> at the death of the night:
>> a couple of gatecrashers
>> tolerated in full swing party
>> now unwelcome.
>>
>> The merry light in Tara's eyes,
>> the lankness of the old guy's hair,
>> no contest. What I saw as shunt,
>> the younger guy saw as push
>> towards front door exit.
>>
>> 'Hands off my dad.'
>> Shoved into outside wall,
>> my only recourse, execution
>> of headlock. Used to work
>> on my younger brother.
>>
>> But now, on damp Carlton
>> street at 3 AM, dealing
>> with beered-up umbrage,
>> when fingers force apart,
>> what Plan B will kick in?
>>
>> The pale girl, my housemate,
>> is suddenly there. 'He's not
>> like that,' she says, of me, inter-
>> posing herself somehow
>> between us.
>>
>> Easing off the last
>> of my unbuckling hold,
>> Tearaway glares, stumbles
>> into night drizzle, arm
>> around his unkempt father.
>>
>> 'Want a lift home?' asks
>> housemate, Shirl. 'Nah. Thanks.'
>> Shirl heads for her Vee Dub,
>> I turn for Tara.
>>
>> bw
>> 4.6.14
>
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask]
>
> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
> http://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
>
> Latest books:
> Continuations & Continuations 2 (with Sheila E Murphy)
> http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=962
> Recording Dates
> (Rubicon Press)
>
> would you
>
> care to be more
> precise about whatever
> it is you are
> saying, I said
>
> Bill Manhire
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
|