Saving our brothers sometimes means saving ourselves. Another look at who we are.
copyright 2007, Jerry W. Engler
From such as I
Little brother,
you stand looking at me
in your soft, new,
dun puppy coat
from along the road,
your pink tongue lolling
over youthful, long sharp teeth.
Innocent brother,
learn to run
from such as I
who might kill you
as a rival for meat,
or for the cruel joy
of looking over the hood
at you looking over your shoulder
back at me
in the typical style
of your kind
as you run from
the wheels of death.
Such as I
would put a bullet
through your lungs,
and hang your limp remains
over a barbed wire fence
as a savage warning
to your family.
Such as I
would train the dogs
to seize you by the throat,
to shake you to a bloody pulp,
while hollering get him,
get him, by heck.
But such as I
would also listen with
half-closed eyes,
when your family comes
out at night,
to yip and yap
the familiar calls of the wild,
and explain to visitors
the banshee's voice
in that wild,
unconquered sound.
For such as I
would make you romantic
for your tireless, galloping lope,
for your God-given wisdom and abilities
to survive where
your relatives fail.
You're smart,
you're cunning,
you know how to organize
the hunt,
your den,
the avoidance of
one such as I.
I admire you, little brother.
So, just once,
one such as I,
will honk my horn
to help you live one day.
But it will never fail,
that another day,
such as I
will hear a coyote wail,
then come to find your trail,
to kill you, little brother,
crush you broken to the earth,
wish all your kind
in my bloody grip.
Remember one such as I,
little brother as you chew
a bleeding lamb.
We're really kind of alike.
I'm not sure what was in your mind as you wrote, but I know what was in mind as I read. I kept thinking of youth gangs in our society, especially in the larger cities where anyone that looked or hung out in your style was your brother, your bro, someone you had an association with, someone you admired or looked after or, yes, someone you killed if the need arose.
"We run as part of a cohesive pack, my bro and I, at times supportive of one another against the outside world, unless the outside world focuses on me. Then you are expendable. That's when I'll 'find your trail, little brother, crush you broken to the earth.'"
So, when I see one member of the pack ritualistically greet another member with his big-city bark of "Whatup, Blood?" I know it's not a warm salutation based on admiration; it's really one dredge of society acknowledging another dredge as they jockey for survival.
That's when I remind myself, once again, to lock my doors and windows and trust no one. Little brothers have Saturday night specials tucked into their socks and shivs up their sleeves waitin' for lambs like me to enter the slaughter trough of the darkened public parking lot.
Yes, I know what I'm thinking when I read your words, Jerry, and I marvel at your uncanning ability to take us down to the street and show us what our eyes have seen but not perceived and, in this case, maybe saved our own lives "From such as I."
These eyes of mine spent 39 years in the criminal justice system and never were able to comprehend how one douses a kitten with gasoline and flings it into a barrel full of burning refuse to see what happens.
All this while, my own heart saddens when I see a dying honeybee on the sidewalk in the glaring sun, so I gently lift it onto the grass in a shaded protected area where it can die a peaceful, untortured death.
Make no mistake. This is a cruel, divided world ruled by Satan. My salvation is a quiet paddle on a placid lake listening for the voice of God.
"From such as I" -- A brilliant piece of work, Jerry Engler!
I Made My Boy Out of Poetry is a powerful literary vision of rare scope, beauty and emotional intensity composed of stories and poems that flow in and out of each other like the most lucid and articulate of dreams. These are portraits and studies of
My second book is about a boy who has Asperger's Syndrome and is bullied to the point to where he shoots up his school. I have divided the excerpts from it into three parts: Before, during and after the shooting.
A teenage boy struggling with the coming-of-age issues of sexuality, religion, and peer approval is overwhelmed, but soldiers on. After several years, he comes to understand the family forces that have left him so deeply troubled, and the process of
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I'm not sure what was in your mind as you wrote, but I know what was in mind as I read. I kept thinking of youth gangs in our society, especially in the larger cities where anyone that looked or hung out in your style was your brother, your bro, someone you had an association with, someone you admired or looked after or, yes, someone you killed if the need arose.
"We run as part of a cohesive pack, my bro and I, at times supportive of one another against the outside world, unless the outside world focuses on me. Then you are expendable. That's when I'll 'find your trail, little brother, crush you broken to the earth.'"
So, when I see one member of the pack ritualistically greet another member with his big-city bark of "Whatup, Blood?" I know it's not a warm salutation based on admiration; it's really one dredge of society acknowledging another dredge as they jockey for survival.
That's when I remind myself, once again, to lock my doors and windows and trust no one. Little brothers have Saturday night specials tucked into their socks and shivs up their sleeves waitin' for lambs like me to enter the slaughter trough of the darkened public parking lot.
Yes, I know what I'm thinking when I read your words, Jerry, and I marvel at your uncanning ability to take us down to the street and show us what our eyes have seen but not perceived and, in this case, maybe saved our own lives "From such as I."
These eyes of mine spent 39 years in the criminal justice system and never were able to comprehend how one douses a kitten with gasoline and flings it into a barrel full of burning refuse to see what happens.
All this while, my own heart saddens when I see a dying honeybee on the sidewalk in the glaring sun, so I gently lift it onto the grass in a shaded protected area where it can die a peaceful, untortured death.
Make no mistake. This is a cruel, divided world ruled by Satan. My salvation is a quiet paddle on a placid lake listening for the voice of God.
"From such as I" -- A brilliant piece of work, Jerry Engler!
With sincere respect and admiration,
Richard
Regis
Quite an interesting look at who we are and the world around us, and quite a profound poem, Jerry, and very very good.