Casual Tea

Last night I dreamed I was running

across the craters of the Western Front.

The enemy had retreated, and the doctor

told me that a Body had died.

 

“All are buried or home for tea,

but a doctor works in between.

The war is won, and I am done.

And so It is.” Somebody’s son.

 

I ran for hours

through the black earth stricken

by gas, and over trenches

as wide as the Rubicon,

flooded with singed meat

decomposed too fast.

 

Until,

by the shadow of a tree,

reclined like a Caesar

in the mortar-tilled dirt,

I found the Body.

 

“Oh, thank God almighty,”

the Body said,

“you came here to save me!”

(It was not very dead).

 

 

Seattle Man

In sixth grade, Will moved out west like a cattleman,

told me ‘bout weed on Xbox: “Promise not to tattle, man.”

 

Boeing, Hendrix, Supersonics, Grunge,

Puget: the sound of battle, man.

 

I traded my controllers for a guitar,

I’d wave the pick like a paddle, man.

 

PAF, drop-D, Big Muff—

oh, I could prattle, man.

 

Solid-state’s not so bad,

the speakers rattle, man.

 

I’d follow Cobain, Cornell, and Staley,

ax in hand, I’d jump on the saddle, man.

 

I was any joints short of stoner,

but my brain I’d addle, man.

 

“Look, it’s Neal, the mound of sludge!”

Call me Melvin, a real Seattle man.  ∎

 

Words by Neal Bold.

Art by Louis Rush.