He Wanted a Gun
He wanted a gun that
was capable of shooting the Sun.
Something that could pump lead into this
massive star’s molten surface with enough
velocity that the steel-cased bullet
wouldn’t dissolve before it
did the desired damage.
Oh yea…
and it couldn’t kick too much;
had to be portable,
and short enough to fit on his
pickup truck’s gun rack.

He wanted a gun that could
field dress a ten point buck with
only one blazing shot.
Something of enough caliber
that it could vaporize guts and
automatically mount the head over a fireplace.

He wanted a gun with big bullets.
I mean really big bullets.
But not so big that you couldn’t get
at least a couple hundred in the magazine
without them getting claustrophobic.
Not that this was a bad thing
‘cause bullets, like sperm,
should always be rearing to go.
Git. Skedaddle.

A gun whereby each and
every bullet leaving the barrel
would progressively get bigger.

Caliber to infinity,
if you get my meaning.

But he wanted this gun to be
small enough to
conceal beneath his clothes,
yet not so compact that you
couldn’t tell it was there.
A gun that you could
shove in your pants and…
well…
you know where I’m going with this.
I mean, there’s unsightly bulges,
and then that which are
aesthetically pleasing.
He?
He wanted a sexy gun.

Strange how none of the packaging
that guns came in
stepped right out and
stated that.
That is, unless I’m
missing something.

What he truly wanted was
a gun that would make him attractive
to the opposite sex, but…
but what’s eerie here is that
men with guns
really only seem to appeal to
other men with guns.

Latent homoerotic big bored barrel fetish?
What is up with that?!

Enough!
Enough about him and what
HE wants.
Dude’s obviously got issues.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that,
if I took my gun out
right now
and slammed it down on that table
just there,
not one man
would want to look at it.
Not one man would get up,
cross the room and
take it in his hand.

And dang if this ain’t a nice gun.
Damn fine tooling.

Oh, nothing big mind you.
Although well used,
it’s still got its chrome.
Meticulously well oiled
and comes
completely.
Equipped, I should add.

Of course,
in this one rare instance,
a few women would
actually take notice.
A murmur would go through the audience.
A debate would arise.
“Just what type pistola is that?”

Indeed, though
you may have encountered this
exact same model,
some may have a hard time recalling
the particular gun’s name.

But don’t give up.
Keep trying.

Trust me.

It’s right there on the tip of your tongue.

©06 Jack Hubbell

He’s the Bomb
There must be well over a
hundred of us here
and only one of him.
And we’re watching him.
Yea… We’re watching his every move.

Him?
He’s different than us.
He’s a man of dark complexion.
He’s got this special beard.
He’s wearing a white robe.
A thobe?
A jellaba?
And what with that matching white skullcap…
“You’re not from around here, are you buddy?”

His complexion?
What’s so special about that?
Of those of us
watching him,
many are lighter;
many darker.
Some have the exact same skin tone.
So…
It ain’t that.
Rather, it’s that,
plus this,
plus that.
It’s him as the total package
which has caught our pensive attention.

If we saw him down at the local shopping mall,
would we bother to study him so closely?
Well yes,
we’d notice him,
but he wouldn’t achieve the level of critical
eye-ball
he’s got right now.

Oh yea,
I suppose I should have pointed out that all of us…
All of us, plus one…
All of us are waiting at the gate.
And on the far side of that gate…
an airplane.
You know…
One of those things you used to associate with flight,
but now you envision it as
high-rise projectile;
fireball in the sky;
a great big
lawn dart.

And what’s fascinating is that
we as a racist nation
(and don’t tell me we ain’t)…
That all of us of assorted complexions,
all standing here at this boarding gate,
wouldn’t all bond together as one big ugly bigot
just because that one other
special complexion
is sitting over there, wrapped
in his pristine white jilbab robe.

But now listen:
again,
it’s not about the color of his skin.
If there’s something we fear
(and yes, fear
is part of this equation),
it’s the ideas that are in his head.
It’s those thoughts based on
two thousand years worth of religion.

“My God! What is he thinking?!”
No. Rather,
“His God. What is he thinking?”

And there,
holding boarding pass in hand,
waiting to step through that gate,
I imagine someone walking up to
that which we fear, and asking,
“Hey!
Hey you!
Just what are you thinking?
What’s going on your mind?”

And strangely,
I can hear his response.
Something like:
“Fear.
Yes, fear.
I and my god
are afraid of you and your god.”

Is this what it comes down to?
Don’t you find it strange that two gods
of such immense power
would have us embrace fear
as opposed to that of each other’s hand?

Could there be a chance that
the slightest touch between us might negate
not only fear, but
those gods which create it?
It’s a dangerous, dangerous thing.

So, no.
He and we…
All of us about to take flight…
We take flight from fear,
and with fear,
as we will not permit one hand
to take shelter within the clasp of
that other’s.

So the moment finally comes,
and we all pass through that gate.
Our tickets have been bought, and
I’d like to think our destination was set,
but up in the cockpit,
two almighty pilots
struggle for control of the stick,
and with it,
our fate.

©06 Jack Hubbell

On Punching People in the Face
I have a confession to make.
I practice hitting people.
Have done so for years.

I imagine you’re wondering why I’m telling you this.
That you now have a reason to
fear sudden violent trauma should we
come to some disagreement.
This is simply not the case.
It’s not you people I have it out for.
It’s not those people standing
there outside that door either.
But if not you or them,
just who is it my fists yearn for?
Why all this perceived violence?

Wait a second…
Step back.
Slip that punch.
Fade away into the corner.
Call time.

I’m there in the garage,
squared off in front of a heavy bag.
And I’m wailing.
ThumpThumpThump.
A staccato ostinato of ill intent.
My gloved fists rain in upon that bag
in a persistent effort not
to go mere pitty-pat,
but penetrate,
violate,
obliterate.

I should point out that,
when I’m punching the heavy bag,
I make faces.
It’s something over which I have no control.
Id idiomatic.
A facial flaunt of
foul infliction.
---Please note that I
in no way
appear endearing.

So there,
just at the culmination of a
particularly vicious lead, cross,
uppercut tantrum of leather,
I hear the voices of my
young niece and nephew
somewhere there behind me.
One is all of seven years old;
the other five.

I turn to fully face them
and there they stand,
stark still and squarely framed
in the large garage door.
Though backlit,
I can see their eyes are wide open.
Indeed, in their pollyanna world,
I have just become a bit of an
anomaly.

After a long pause,
my nephew finally speaks.
“Uncle Jack,” he questions timidly.
“Why are you so angry?”
I drop my hands to my side,
and reply, “Well, I have to be
if I’m going to hit the bag.”
And with a pained look on his face,
he comes back with,
“By why Uncle Jack?
Why do you have to hit the bag?”
And with the expression echoed
there on my niece’s face,
I can tell she is perfectly in sync with the question.
“Well you see, I have to,
because you never know when you’ll have to…
‘Cause there are times when…
…

How do you explain to an innocent mind
the need to practice hurting another individual?
How do you qualify the transfer
of that which exists within your adult world
to a Disneyesque realm
void of atrocity?

“Well, you see, Mommy’s being raped and…”

No. No. No.
You can’t acknowledge that.

“Okay. This guy’s coming at your eye
with a broken bottle and…”

“This other nation has a thermo-nuclear bomb
which they hope to incinerate us with and…”
“And there’s Anthrax.”
“And there’s Sarin Gas.”

None of this.
None of this.

None of this exists.

And I’m forced to look at those two kids and say,
“Uncle Jack can’t explain this to you.
It’s just something…
he does.”

And with that, they
simply turn around
and walk away.
Their world now
ever so slightly tainted.

And what I want to say to them is:
“One of these days you’ll understand,
and of this, I’m sorry.
So very
sorry.”

Turning back to the bag,
I step in and deliver
my final punch.
Yes, a pretty good blow,
yet nothing so brutal as
what awaits
them.

©06 Jack Hubbell

“D.N.R.”
She enters the room and
asks my father about the
D.N.R. paperwork.
The D.N.R. that he and my mother
had signed that previous year.
“The D.N.R. paperwork?”
he repeats back to her.
And she:
“Yes. The D.N.R. paperwork
you turned in.”
Again he queries, “D.N.R.?”
She hesitates, then says,
“the Do Not Resuscitate paperwork.”
And here he parrots her remark,
“the Do Not Resuscitate paperwork.”
He says it,
but
it’s rather obvious that a
big question still hangs in the air.

The three of us stand over my mother
who lies in a hospital recovery room
and looks…
quite fragile,
ancient and
mortal.

“Yes. Do Not Resuscitate.”
And then
my father says it:
“Do Not Resuscitate.
What does that mean?”

And there we have a pregnant moment.
And strangely enough,
‘pregnant moment’ implies
the birth of something.

Something that transitions into something.
Something to do with life.
That which this moment does not.
And she looks at my father and says,
“The decision not to resuscitate.”
And my father,
he turns and looks at me.
His head tilts. Ever so.
“Do you know what she’s saying?”

And I look back to the nurse
and then to my dad.
A pregnant moment.

“Dad. It’s the decision that…
If the moment comes…
Say, there’s cardiac arrest and they, say,
might choose to try and resuscitate…
You know, like
with the paddles…
And you…
You make the decision to let her…
pass on.”

And I can see it click in his eyes.
And there’s a
pregnant moment.
“Oh yes,” he says with a nod.
“I mean no.
She and I…
Yes. Not to resuscitate.”

And I find myself looking at the nurse wondering,
“why?”
Why she could not say it.
How hard is it to explain what
Do Not Resuscitate means?
How hard?
How very hard, indeed.
©06 Jack Hubbell

Fire Good!
You know,
it took us a long time to figure out that whole
throwing-animals-in-the-fire thing.
Allot of you just assume that we
whipped out a cookbook
and there deduced the optimum time
to sling some creature into the flames,
but
we didn’t even have paper back then, so
no… no cookbooks.
Pretty much just cave walls and
certain arrangements of rocks on the ground.
Be that as it may,
cooking was kind of a hit and miss thing.

Oog and Grog’s wives had the whole
“yank-food-out-fire-now!” thing
down pretty good.
Lionel’s wife, on the other hand,
was about as sharp as
a piece of non-knapping flint rock.
[Okay. That was a pretty good joke back in the day.
I guess you had to be there.]
Again, Lionel’s wife Bruce…
[“Bruce” being a very popular name for
women during this time.
You know, it’s kind of odd
what’s happened to it since.]

Anyway, Bruce couldn’t cook shit.
Part of the problem was that
she often did try to cook shit.
Let’s just say there were lots of leftovers on those nights.

So yea, Lionel’s wife Bruce had
one set time period she’d throw an animal in the fire.
The bad thing was that
this time period was the same for a sparrow
as it was for a mastodon.
Her grilled sparrow was inevitably charred to ash
whereas her mastodon was
blackened on the bottom,
a touch of singe on the side
and steak tartar for the remainder.

Now,
DoDo Bird?
Man, Bruce could sear some tasty DoDo Bird,
and it wasn’t long before
Lionel came to spend all his time hunting DoDo.
The down side of this, well…
Let’s just say they ate way too much DoDo.
Okay. So again,
there was a learning curve after we
discovered fire and its use for cooking.
It took us around a year before
we discovered you should never throw a
live animal into the fire.
Generally they’d just jump up and commence
running around the cave setting things on fire.
Yea, I think the first time that happened was
the day Oog’s wife Sweet Pea discovered
the craft of weaving.
Yep, we were all on the verge of wearing
proper woven cloth
when that giant tree sloth sprang out of the fire,
lumbered right through Sweet Pea’s weaving loom
an wore it, and its flaming fur
right out into the fire drenched night.
It would take a few millennia for
the blouse and pleated skirt to make its comeback.
Until then,
the women of the cave would have to continue
wandering around naked.
So yea, beyond the act of cooking,
fire had many versatile benefits.
What with no fire for illuminating our cave,
we cavemen would not have been able to spend
those long evenings watching all them
prehistoric cave mamas
throwin’ fascinating shadows up against our
equally curvaceous walls.

Let’s face it.
Television was quite a few years away.
Until then…
Fire?

Oh yea.
Fire was good.

Yo Bruce baby!
Any more of them there
flammin’ hot DoDo wings?

©05 Jack Hubbell

Cyber-Spew
If it’s not on the Internet,
it doesn’t exist,
and for a very long time I haven’t existed.
Well, I sorta existed
before the Internet came into being,
but since the Internet makes no
reference to this proposed existence,
then that whole portion of my life is
pretty much irrelevant.

All those times in my life that I had
sexual intercourse,
no matter how good it was, well,
it’s all meaningless.
And all you out there hearing this
who I have had
“For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge”…
Now calm down.
Don’t get stressed.
It’s just a matter of time before the
video footage gets on the Internet and
you won’t feel snubbed anymore.
I know there’s been allot of
search engine activity on this subject.
For the most part it has all been me.

Almost every other time I Google,
It’s my name,
then “sex”,
then “video footage”.
All this time I’ve been looking and
I’ve yet to have a hit on anything,
but I haven’t given up.
I figure it’s just a matter of time before
some woman from my past posts some
super sordid saucy cinematics on
her personal website.


Now I must admit,
I don’t recall there ever being the presence of
video equipment at any of my
past, prodigiously vast
cornucopia of coital encounters,
but that don’t mean it wasn’t going on.
I mean in today’s day and age,
you kind of expect it, right?
“Yea, but why sex?” I hear you ask.
“Why of all things visual,
would it be
sex posted on the Internet?”
Why? Because, well…
What other options do I have?
This is what I expect, cuz
you sure as fudgiola won’t
never see my name on the web associated to
anything cerebral like, say…
poetry.
Ooo, yea. Right.
Like I got a chance in hell of achieving that!

No. I figure my only hope of
proving my existence via the Internet
is that time my buddy Nat
fixed me up with Paris Hilton.
Fingers crossed, I
should come to exist pretty soon.
Until then,
you can check out the quality of her
risque recording prowess by going to
WWW dot Boys-I’ve-Bonked dot Com.
There you can peruse her
one and only encounter with Natty.
Not to worry about the size of the file.
It’s a pretty darn
quick
download.

©05 Jack Hubbell