Blood in the Water

Verbatim ventilation, he said, 

"And just what are you? 

  Some sort     of faggot?" 

No.   Oh, and 

here a flag on the play 

for this was simply no way 

to start a cordial conversation, 

   but then, 

I really don't think 

that the man 

with the stripes on his sleeve 

was ever much for refined repartee. 

Nay, that his tête-à-tête tend toward trauma 

  was likely dread intent. 

Fear & Despair unto we wee newts 

   o' neutered naiveté. 

Ripped from our mother's breast 

and savagely thrust unto 

that first five minutes of basic training. 

Cry foul for dank incontinence. 

Clinch butt for woe and behold.      

There. 

Yes, there at the front door. 

There at the first bunk. 

This one young man 

who only moments ago 

thought himself ever so clever 

for having claimed it. 

Here now, a group of drill sergeants 

explode through said portal 

like sharks in a feeding frenzy, 

ravenously ripping asunder 

every sad-sack they encounter. 

And while I tread water with 

the minimum of flipper agitation, 

that boy at the door 

exists in maelstrom of chum; 

his psyche now in vivid vivisection— 

   all for our viewing displeasure. 

There, his suitcase upended, inverted 

  and dumped upon bunk. 

There, its contents placed on public display 

  for rabid rut    and ridicule. 

And he, prior to this pending rent and rend, 

somehow thinking his 

experience of basic training 

might manifest monotonous. 

He, thus figuring it best 

to have brought literature. 

Indeed there in his suitcase, 

lies a paperback edition of 

Robert E. Howard's 

'Conan The Barbarian.' 

And of course, there upon its cover 

stands a buff and bare-chested Conan 

wielding a rather substantial sword. 

A butch barbarian clad in leather. 

"Oh, and just what are you? 

  Some sort of faggot?!" 

And there he stands, this man. 

   This boy. 

Spewing snot and tears. 

He reeling beneath 

enough Freudian devastation 

to last him a further twenty years. 

Oh, and what would Conan do, huh? 

Just what    would    he    do? 

Why he'd laugh. 

He'd roar.    He'd smite. 

       He'd      giggle. 

Giggle? 

There now. 

Further down the

baggage strewn bay of beds, 

someone begins     to giggle. 

And as one boy’s carcass 

dips to ever depressive depths, 

   said sharks swarm 

to converge upon another. 

This giggling other with actual 

   smile   upon his face. 

And who but a dancing dolphin 

would dare comprehend the joke? 

"What's so funny?! 

What is so mother-fuckin' funny?!" 

And here, a snarl of savage teeth 

encircle an equally bright 

   and toothsome smile. 

A smile… 

Here   amidst    apocalypse… 

Obscene seen   so serene. 

A smile.  

  

A smile? 

"What?!    

               What?! 

What's so fuckin' funny?!" 

And here, 

once profanity transitions 

from rant    to pant,

he o' blessed beatitude 

presently comes to speak. 

"I'm sorry, but 

it's just that I know how 

everything you're doing and saying 

  is nothing more    than an act. 

That in truth, I know 

you really don't want to hurt me— 

that you're only attempting 

   to break us." 

And though shark school drool 

doth pool 'bout the rest 

of us lesser dolphins, 

there mid-center maelstrom, 

someone's funny bone 

comes to catch 'tween 

gnash and gnaw of 

a gnarled yet neutered jaw. 

And while the rest of said sharks 

flaunt fin before face 

and chomp churn chum 

their taunt testosterone,

two with stripes

grab he who would smile 

and whisk him from 

our room o’ doom.

Dead. 

Dead.    Most 

surely dead. 

And yet, 

less than a month later, 

both I and a boy fond of 

   bare-chested men, 

see he who would smile 

   pass 

through the same gate as us. 

We of shark fin.

We of shark tooth. 

We of shark smile 

   and   

shark sanction. 

Set loose upon this mirthless world  

  to chum its water red.

Set loose upon its charnel carnivals, 

  ‘til all your clowns are bled. 

      

© 2016 Jack David Hubbell