Thickney
kickbox
They Were
I'm carrying the blood of Napoleon from when
Way back he sailed the Atlantic it seems;
He and his boat full of slaves on their route from
Africa, nowhere particular on the whole continent, to
The Miramachi. And while there, so says my Grandmother,
In her kitchen table talk this initiator
Of nation-states by way of conquering
Empires felt like fitting in another victory.
That one never made it back to France, the
True-or-false dichotomy never reaching a tug
At his big hardwood scroll tomb that draws
In tourist after tourist at the Hotel des Invalides.
Am I quite happy to be great-great-grand bastard
Of some insecurity issue personified, or-
Hoping desperately for a lie to be
On the surface of her face, one
Anxious to get out to plastic
Lawn chairs for another smoke.
(Mom said “not in my house!” since
The day she had one to claim
Ownership over.) Nothing but belief
In y(our) genealogy can be seen. I’d
Rather descend from an imagination,
An impossible happening, than a
Conquering warlord from centuries past.
And of my biological grandfather, I may
Make of him whatever I please in her
Precedent, the awkward silence filling his absence.
His keen nose upturned asleep between groves
And red stones in Al-Andalus as a spy,
A man of most dangerous missions for Republican
Spain, a horseman who rode from Ulan-Bataar to
Samarkand in less than a week, full of good news
And medicines. He laid low Bobby Fischer
In fifteen moves and carved him a spoon
To gnash his teeth on. Ten foot two, his
Soul a match, he wept for felling a
Thousand year redwood with a single swing.
He sailed the Atlantic in a boat made of reeds,
Gave Beckett pointers. And in old age
Dropped his cane and the weight of decades
Without a wasted moment to dance a jig to
A Francophone river song playing in his mind
On top of a section of the Berlin wall crumbling
As Germans east and west jubilated, He was a
Limitless number of unbelievable things that
Constrained him from being my grandfather, He was-
I'm carrying the blood of Napoleon from when
Way back he sailed the Atlantic it seems;
He and his boat full of slaves on their route from
Africa, nowhere particular on the whole continent, to
The Miramachi. And while there, so says my Grandmother,
In her kitchen table talk this initiator
Of nation-states by way of conquering
Empires felt like fitting in another victory.
That one never made it back to France, the
True-or-false dichotomy never reaching a tug
At his big hardwood scroll tomb that draws
In tourist after tourist at the Hotel des Invalides.
Am I quite happy to be great-great-grand bastard
Of some insecurity issue personified, or-
Hoping desperately for a lie to be
On the surface of her face, one
Anxious to get out to plastic
Lawn chairs for another smoke.
(Mom said “not in my house!” since
The day she had one to claim
Ownership over.) Nothing but belief
In y(our) genealogy can be seen. I’d
Rather descend from an imagination,
An impossible happening, than a
Conquering warlord from centuries past.
And of my biological grandfather, I may
Make of him whatever I please in her
Precedent, the awkward silence filling his absence.
His keen nose upturned asleep between groves
And red stones in Al-Andalus as a spy,
A man of most dangerous missions for Republican
Spain, a horseman who rode from Ulan-Bataar to
Samarkand in less than a week, full of good news
And medicines. He laid low Bobby Fischer
In fifteen moves and carved him a spoon
To gnash his teeth on. Ten foot two, his
Soul a match, he wept for felling a
Thousand year redwood with a single swing.
He sailed the Atlantic in a boat made of reeds,
Gave Beckett pointers. And in old age
Dropped his cane and the weight of decades
Without a wasted moment to dance a jig to
A Francophone river song playing in his mind
On top of a section of the Berlin wall crumbling
As Germans east and west jubilated, He was a
Limitless number of unbelievable things that
Constrained him from being my grandfather, He was-