Light Switch
In the far room someone was sobbing,
and it’s interesting to note that
I could tell it was that of a young man.

I found this disturbing.
More disturbing than if it were a woman…
and why is that?
I guess you just figure it must be
pretty traumatic
to get a man to cry.
Equally disturbing that is matters less
when it’s a woman.
I care more.
I care less.
What’s it gonna be?
Sorta depends on your quality of trauma.

“Hon? Sweetie?
I’ve got something to tell you.
I…
do not love you.
In fact, I never have.
Who could?”

Okay. That’s pretty mean.
Pretty brutal.
Tears well. Damage done.

But listen:
I’m a dick.
I’m a phuqin asshole.
Everybody knows that.
They fill you in.
You push away that box of tissues
and nod your head in agreement.
“Jack? Jack who?
Frickin’ history.
Forget about it.”

You shrug it off.
That trauma?
A little less so now.
…

I’m eighteen years old
and there in that room,
a man is crying.
A young man.
My age.
I mean…
This sounds pretty bad.
It’s dark in there.
Pitch black.
And the sound…
the sound he emits moves from sob,
to a moan, to a wail,
and back again.
This is horrible.
Someone is in obvious need of help.

I move to the doorway,
reach in and hit the light switch.
The room illuminates and
in less than two seconds,
I’m frantically switching it off again.

There’s allot that transpires
in that two second period.
I see a bit too much and yea,
I guess others do as well.

When the ceiling lamp bursts to full brilliance,
I see that
there on the far side of the room,
a group of my schoolmates all sit around Roy.
Yes, Roy is the focal point.
The sobs; the moan; the wail…
gone. Or rather,
they’ve transitioned to this
high pitched scream.
(Yes. Men do scream.)
The look on his face…
The look on his face…
How do you poetically describe that?
You don’t.
You just say,
“The look
on his face.”

Here simultaneously,
everyone else in the room
starts yelling for me to
“Turn the light off! Turn the light off!”
And Roy?
That scream goes a pitch higher.

So I toggle the light to off.
I switch it off
and turn away.
I don’t want to know.
And yet, as I turn and walk away,
that scream follows me.
It fills the house.
And though the house is full of others my age,
they stand there silent.
They know.
They all know.
Roy is screaming and they and I
(the only innocent left…),
we all know to be quiet
cause Roy is having…
an experience.
A very very bad-da-da-da-da
experience-ence-ence-ence.
…

A little over a decade later,
Roy commits suicide.

When I hear of it,
the first thing I think about is
that light switch.

Yes, it would appear Roy’s
abundance of experience
proved more than one life
could possibly absorb.
Indeed, there came a moment
when it was far easier to unscrew
that oh so bright light bulb,
and simply
throw it away.

©06 Jack Hubbell

My Physique
There comes a time
when you know you’ve attained your
perceived pinnacle of athletic achievement.
For me, the moment is at hand,
and I must seize it.
I will become a professional bowler.

Now I suppose I could have
taken up bowling
a year ago, but no.
I was different then.
I was toned.
I was ripped.
I was svelte.
I had just completed a season
touring with the
Chippendales.

I’m sure many of you are asking, “Hey!
Why the career change?”
Well let me tell you:
it’s hard work being a Chippendale.
Loads of physical and mental stress.
Listen: You wouldn’t know.
You haven’t done this.

For one,
it’s a sex trade.
Really.
No getting around it.
You can talk up the art side of it all you want
but those women could care less
whether you’ve just executed the
most perfect triple cabriole.
Deep down,
what they really want is
perpetual pelvic thrust.

And then, of course all those
late nights fading to dawn
as you sit there counting and stacking
thousand upon thousand of
single dollar bills.
It’s an ugly taxing business.

So I quit.
Just let myself go.
Traded my six-pack abs in for
a six-pack belly.
Hung up my G-string.
Gave all that baby oil to my best buddy _______.
Parked my butter butt in a barcalounger
for one whole year
with nothin’ but a TV remote in one hand
and a can of PBR in the other.

And yes, right about now
I feel I’m at my physical prime to
dive into the grueling arena of professional bowling.

But let me be honest here.
I’ve got a bit of a hidden agenda.
You see, unbeknownst to many,
professional bowling has its sordid side.
Indeed, professional bowling
is overrun with groupies.

Yup.
It’s all about sex,
and that my friends explains
why I look the way
I do today.

©06 Jack Hubbell

Loess Hills
I am moved.
This I cannot deny.
Standing alone,
high above these Loess Hills,
I watch the last remnants of illumination
wane upon distant horizon.
This violet sky once held an orange orb
and I do not doubt it will again,
but this moment…
This moment we shared…
It shall not come again.
And because of this,
I am moved.

Yes. There was a moment
(mere seconds ago),
when you and I were at one.
I’d like to think we embraced,
and just now,
I alter my memory to make it so.
Indeed, we did embrace.
Do you not remember?
If not…
no matter.
My mind has a heavy quill
and I shall dip it deep into this
canopy of inky sky.

And should you view my script
at some later date,
you may note that my hand wavered…
ever so.
As to this, the reason’s simple.
I am moved.

I lift a lens to receptive eye,
and there in our shared dusk,
the Loess Hills resolve to focus.
There is beauty here, yet
it is that which derives from decay.

As a rose wilts,
so do these verdant hills.
Be mindful though
that the nature of a rose is that
it is doomed to ever transition
away from beauty.
Here on these Loess Hills,
I stand above eons of erosion,
full knowing that this pending moment—
this movement from decay to yet
further decay…
That this is their pinnacle of beauty.
One zenith
amidst many,
but this one…
This one is ours.
And I am moved.

These hills stand;
yet stand unstable,
and with each lung’s expulsion,
they fall away.
At this very moment,
I breathe a heavy sigh
and they collapse
beneath my feet.
And something of this
is glorious.
That memory of our embrace…
equally unstable.
Yet I would have it no other way.

So here,
high upon a tower overlooking
vast undulations,
it somehow seems appropriate that
your movement away from me,
leading down heavy wooden stairs,
transmits upward
from platform
to hand
to camera.

And there in that viewfinder,
such transient vision is shaken,
for with each and every step
you come to take
away from me,
I am moved.

Such bliss.

This moment we shared,
forever blurred.

©06 Jack Hubbell