Posted in Chutzpah

Guidance Counselor

Water egress was the task at hand
Mike said he didn’t know why it was called egress
when it involved getting into water :
sliding down a rope from a helicopter
into a Zodiac inflatable ….
if lucky
if not, the North Sea ….. and ….

That rubber oval … It was so Goddamn small
“ what is it son
.. I’m scared Sarge
scared, SCARED, you’re not allowed to be scared in the army
get down that fucking rope NOW.”

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Author:

Most of my life has been spent on the bench, occasionally called into the game by extravagance or attenuation. Waiting has turned a loner into a recorder - nondescript and inconsequential, more not noticed than overlooked - the non-vantage point of children not yet considered old enough to understand. Orphaned Islands (Un)poetry is a lifetime of picking anecdotes up and not throwing them away. Stories collected like odds and ends placed in a box in the basement, the garage, the garden shed - uncertain as to what their use might be but knowing that one day there might be one.