by Robert Emmett
Damn it, said John, that’s the ballgame.
Anybody want this last drought of ale?
My brother brewed it special, he mumbled.
I can’t fucking believe it, exclaimed Ben,
pounding the table with a beefy old fist,
spewing bits of bread and roast chicken.
Thomas gazed up from his page, eyes ablaze,
stretched his legs, rose and put another log upon the fire.
Unutterable fools, he cursed, until the end of time.
Even Alex brooded, glancing pensively out the side window
of Grave’s End Tavern, fingering a shilling, lost in his thoughts.
If only, he muttered, if only…
Young Tom piped-up, it’s not over quite yet, is it?
There’s still time to do something, isn’t there?
Shall we wake the old man?
Leave George be. Let him sleep. He’ll never forgive you.
The general snorted and turned-over on his bench, lips blue, teeth
chattering.
A waking dream: the acrid smell of gunpowder scorches his nostrils,
flecks of red on a field of white.
Don’t ever call me George again
was all he could manage to say.
Robert Emmett writes from the tree-shrouded hills of Michigan when the spirit moves and the waking dreams come in the dead of night.