{"id":217,"date":"2011-05-19T10:17:41","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T10:17:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/?page_id=217"},"modified":"2012-02-02T20:17:28","modified_gmt":"2012-02-02T20:17:28","slug":"zachariah-wells","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/writings\/poetry\/zachariah-wells","title":{"rendered":"Zachariah Wells"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ahasuerus <\/strong><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was a colossal case of crossed wires.<\/p>\n

When he stopped to beg a drop of water,<\/p>\n

I misheard him. His mouth was gummy,<\/p>\n

there was a horrible hubbub and my ears<\/p>\n

have never been quite right. I thought he asked<\/p>\n

for a pair of sandals. (The rhyme’s more clear<\/p>\n

in Aramaic.) Well, a poor cobbler<\/p>\n

can’t afford to give the work of his hands<\/p>\n

away for free, any more than can<\/p>\n

a carpenter, and I could see that he<\/p>\n

hadn’t far to go before he’d need<\/p>\n

no shoes. (Prospects for their speedy return<\/p>\n

seemed slim.) So I told the scrawny beggar<\/p>\n

to move on with his cross and briars.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So Much Depends On <\/strong><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

Whether affection or infection<\/p>\n

Whether predator or virus<\/p>\n

Whether joy or dejection<\/p>\n

Whether Billy Ray or Miley Cyrus<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Whether metonym or metaphor<\/p>\n

Whether keyboard or stylus<\/p>\n

Whether cell phone or semaphore<\/p>\n

Whether iPad or papyrus<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Whether intuition or feeling<\/p>\n

Whether brain stem or gyrus<\/p>\n

Whether stop sign or ceiling<\/p>\n

Whether they lay off or they fire us<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Whether chance or catastrophe<\/p>\n

Whether eyeball or iris<\/p>\n

Whether chorus or antistrophe<\/p>\n

Whether chronos or chiros<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

George, Crossing Guard<\/strong><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

You were sometimes slow, George, caught offguard<\/p>\n

by my crisp clip as I approached your post<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and hit the curb before you could shake out<\/p>\n

your slouch and lift your red sign to stop<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

the traffic\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s flow. So what? You always had<\/p>\n

a quiet word, a smile for my serious<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

son in his stroller. Though I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t say<\/p>\n

I knew you, George, you likely weren’t<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

in the class this world considers gifted;<\/p>\n

your acts must all have had the same slow,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ungraceful way about them. What of it, George?<\/p>\n

If all you did until the day your heart<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

caught you offguard and felled you<\/p>\n

was show up and do no harm, well sir,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

that is a lesson that might give<\/p>\n

the arms dealers, investment bankers<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and plastic surgeons of America<\/p>\n

pause, before they step out from the curb.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Me and Ennui <\/strong><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

He accused me of being mentally<\/p>\n

lazy. Which wasn’t true, not fully,<\/p>\n

because what I am is fundamentally<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

lazy. Which means that my ass<\/p>\n

has a taproot and that my ass-<\/p>\n

umptions are mired in a morass<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

of self-regarding half-truths.<\/p>\n

Blame it on my uncouth<\/p>\n

environs. Blame it on youth<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

or the views of my parents.<\/p>\n

Blame it on my aberrant<\/p>\n

behaviour, the apparent<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

dissolution of my cohort’s esprit,<\/p>\n

an overfond embrace of entropic ennui\u00e2\u20ac\u201d<\/p>\n

and hell, why not blame it on me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ahasuerus   It was a colossal case of crossed wires. When he stopped to beg a drop of water, I misheard him. His mouth was gummy, there was a horrible hubbub and my ears have never been quite right. I thought he asked for a pair of sandals. (The rhyme’s more clear in Aramaic.) Well, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":203,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"authorpoetry.php","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-217","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":925,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/217\/revisions\/925"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}