FOUR POEMS by BOB KING
Gunga. Gunga Ga Lunga
When anthropologists find my bones
in 50,000 years in a cave in southern
France—because that’s where all the
cool bones are discovered—I wonder if
my bones will be mixed with the now
100,000 year old antediluvian bones
of my ginger cousin species, Neanderthals,
which would explain my salt and paprika
complexion and complex lotion system
for dealing with the sky monster’s ball of fire
radiating my un-deer-hide-covered skin
as I sipped accidentally fermented berries
by our pack’s watering hole with Thag
who wouldn’t stop one-finger scratching
his deeply ridged scalp. Will my mostly intact
skeleton be found among the other, artfully
composed skeletons in a semicircle around
our hearth— not really different from a fall
night’s back patio firepit & raucous cocktails
with neighbors until Todd insists that it’s
the last one because he has an early flight
to Baltimore? At that hearth epicenter, will they
find my metatarsals just so, arched, petrified,
resting on a rock just so, feet in that sweet spot
just between too hot and too chilly, ideal &
permanent primordial toastiness? What’ll they
surmise when they find my tools, not too far
from my limestone recliner? A DeWalt 20-volt
Max XR Lithium Ion Brushless Drill that
was still useful once I killed the flashlight
and clearly had no plug to recharge the battery,
but monochromatic Thag still loved the bright
yellow and he was just the ape to use it to conk
a jackal or two on the noggin when the jackals
again got too close and clearly were asking
for a conking, we all nodded and grunted,
perhaps the first jury of his peers. Was our
group impressed with my three-inch pocketknife,
now well worn, but clearly it served its purpose
as a slicer, dicer, stabber, and you wouldn’t believe
how much it saved our almost pristinely preserved
teeth, all that wooly mammoth carcass gnawing
because Jane wanted a new winter coat and Billy
finally came of age enough to carry a sharp
spear—such a thin line between tool and weapon.
That little knife led to my longwinded
and likely terribly incomplete lectures about
extracting metals from that mountain over yonder,
and we’d have to invent a sextant and compass
and keel to sail south across the Mediterranean,
raiding African rare element mines (without
the atrocity of colonialism) if we had any
hope of powering on this iPhone again.
“How far we’ve come, Thag, but we have
millennia to make up for,” I open my palms
in my most courteous-nonthreatening-teacher manner,
straddling that thin line of explanation and being
condescending, “which means talking down to, Thag.”
Well excuuuuuuuuuuuse me. No, Thag, I don’t know
everything. In fact, the more I learn, the less I know.
But I do know that you and I won’t invent
the printing press, electricity, the internal
combustion engine, flight, or mass shooters.
Goddamn. Wait until I tell you about school
shooters. We won’t be the first or last with
hubris, privilege, imposter syndrome, anxiety,
depression, PTSD, hopelessness, bombasts
who teach with well-honed guilt and shame,
or an unwillingness to take a long, hard look at
our inhuman reflections in the tidal pool’s stillness.
But I do know this: when they discover our
femurs & skulls, marrows & flints, they’ll also
unearth our wall markings—clear evidence
that we did try to talk about those difficult
things none of us want to talk about—
if we can mention it, we can manage it—
and we did then genuinely try to take some
kind of responsibility, some kind of action,
leaving this great ball of dirt a little better off
than when we found it.
My Superpower is Waking Up at 3am and Not Falling Back Asleep No Matter What I Do
The one certainty in tiger tracks: follow them long enough and you will eventually arrive at a tiger, unless the tiger arrives at you first. — Russian proverb, quoted from John Vaillant’s The Tiger (2010)Did you know Amur Tigers can hear
the difference between an airplane engine
& the thwat-thwat-thwat of a landing helicopter
and have been known to leap from trees
to swat at the hunters before the chopper
struts even hit the forest floor? Did you
know this same tiger might even know
your scent, left behind on part of her boar kill,
when you only meant to take a hind shank,
just enough to stave off your stomach grumble,
but that was her hind shank, and now she’s
capable of tracking your Old Spice 10 kilometers,
first destroying the outhouse where she can
still smell her boar, even in your excrement,
and paw into your lean-to, transforming
the stuffing inside your mattress into
dandelion puff blown across the Russian
river valley, and she keeps stalking you,
not being as evasive as you need to be?
You can’t shake who you are, laying there
thinking that thinking about too much
of the past fuels depression, and thinking
too much of the future, anxiety. Depression
& anxiety: one’s hunting you; the other
already has you mounted on her wall
in the study. What if the thwat-thwat-thwat
decides it’s your turn next? Do we all gotta
take our turn in the barrel? This has nothing
to do with William Blake’s innocence. It has
to do with perspective, with realizing that if
a tiger could talk, like most travelers from
an antique land, we wouldn’t understand
her language. Heck, we barely understand
each other’s. And man’s artificial kingdoms—
all of them—will eventually fall, time the great
nullifier of supposedly impermeable borders,
and yet Sharpie-carrying politicians still disguise
themselves as authoritative cartographers.
And so, in 1909 Estonian Jakob von Ueküll
used biology to explain human behavior and
society’s structure, likely thought-up at 3am:
Umwelt coexists with Umgebung. Umgebung is
the objective environment around us: the shops
and cart vendors and fire hydrants and potholes
and lampposts along the sidewalks we all
share. But but but, this objective environment
is really only theoretical, right? Because while
place might seem objective & well-mapped
and glass and steel and concrete, because we
all have different umwelt, our experiences
of the “real” world, the umgebung, are actually
all very different. You still with me? You dig?
So if the umgebung is the concrete world,
the umwelt is the different colored soap bubbles
surrounding each of us, each biological creature,
each sealed in our own tinted bubble floating
through the world. So, her umwelt is rose-colored
like her spectacles, and his is gray because
he’s never happy unless he’s unhappy,
and another’s surrounding soap bubble
is yellow because he’s either cowardly or
too cheery—never a middle ground. Anyway,
like a model of spray-painted Styrofoam atoms
forming molecules for a grade school science fair
project, we all bumble down the sidewalk
in our own luminous or dingy umwelts.
Umwelts through the umgebung. A mother
& puppy through the suburb, “While she might
be keenly aware of a sale sign in the window,
a policeman coming toward her, or a broken
bottle in her path,” the puppy she’s walking,
in his own, faintly fuchsia bubble, “would focus
on the gust of cooked meat emanating from
a restaurant’s exhaust fan, the urine on
the fire hydrant, and doughnut crumbs
next to the broken bottle.” These two
are in the same umgebung, but their different
umwelt give them vastly different experiences
of it. These two parallel universes share
commonalities: both puppy and woman
need to be careful crossing the road, both
notice another approaching dog, both perceive
the cop, but given their different umwelten,
they notice, perceive, attend to the environment
for different reasons, even if those soap bubbles
sometimes overlap. He’s hungry. She’s not.
Stomachs growl or don’t. Thin blue line means
nothing to a dachshund. You know what’s
also cool? We can step into each other’s
bubbles—human or animal—and our familiar
is abracadabra presto-change-o transformed:
we can see the world as another sees it.
Biology—from potato bugs to crows to wild
boars to hunters and prey—inspires…
if we uncork our minds, make our umwelt
bubbles permeable at 3am, or in our afternoon
strolls through town, urban forest, a reverse
rainstorm of multicolored helium balloons,
ascending and bumping and merging and
maybe, just maybe, we find understanding…
because we’ll no longer be prisoners of our
subjective bubbles. Successful hunting is
an act of terminal empathy. Successful
empathy, an act of relentless imagination.
A History of the People Who’ve Shaped Me, Even When They Weren’t Trying to Shape Me
Inspired by Amor Towles’ The Lincoln Highway (2021)He looks like the sort of fella who’s wearing
overalls even when he’s not wearing overalls.
And he looks like an astronomer gazing into
the distance, even if he’s just trying to remember
my name. She looks like she’s just caught up on
the laundry even though a family’s laundry
is never complete because life is a constant battle
with dirt, unless you live outside, and in that case,
you’re not really dirty unless your fingers are
actively hoeing the flower bed. Don’t let her
delicate flower demeanor fool you. And her?
She’s always about to gossip even when there’s
little truth to anything she repeats. And he looks
constipated, even when he’s not, and she looks
like she smells like lilac in her purple V-neck,
but I’d recommend an ample social distance.
Her, over there, on the other hand, she looks
like she’s about to orgasm even if a good-oh-god
orgasm is not in her near future. Honey, never
be ashamed of buying the battery value pack.
And him? He looks like a city slicker, even
though his slickness undermines his slickness.
And he looks like he’s thinking even when—
and she’s about to fall asleep even though sleep
entirely eludes her after 3am. And he’s going
to ask to borrow a tool, even if he is one. He looks
like he’s going to ask for a favor, even if he isn’t,
and sure he’ll pay you back Tuesday for what you
surrender today, but just as there’s an endless cycle
of Tuesdays, so too, if you’re not careful, is endless
surrender. Kindness is more often manipulated
than rewarded. Her lips are moving as if she’s
praying, even though she’s not believed since
the eighth grade. He’s scheming. She’s plotting.
They are adding up what you owe, even if
you’ve been careful to owe no one anything.
No is enough. No doesn’t need explanation.
You owe them no rationale. And he looked
confident in what he knew, but his loudness
was ample evidence that he was nothing more
than a large, hollow vessel capable of a lot of
noise. A small pebble echoing down an open,
empty manhole. The milk crate looked like
furniture, even when it wasn’t trying to be.
The tree was just trying to be a tree. I’m still
wonderstruck that early explorers looked at
the untamed forests of the new world, trees
of Nova Scotia, Maine, the Carolinas, and
the Alaskan archipelago, and did not see—
did not see—the people, the animals, oxygen
and mossy plant balance, but looked upon
the natural flying buttresses and imagined
those needled and leafed columns for a future
world-colonizing navy. And so he looked like
he was constantly sucking lemons, even during
the South’s deep freeze. His chin-first demeanor
disguising the fact of his glass jaw. And him?
Well, he’s always tilted on his tiptoes, seeking
the future, even if his gripes anchor him
to the past. She’s a princess. He’s just been
hurt. They’ve just been diagnosed even when
the diagnosis is constantly changing. Science
most looks like science when it’s uncertain.
To the Nth degree for maturity and being learned.
Which holds true for grammar, too. We cling
to it because of its promise of certainty,
but heck even that evolves for the better,
eventually—just ask he/him she/her they/them
zie/zim. And so, her appreciative eyes looked like
she was slicing onions, even when there were
no onions near. I said no onions near. No onions
nor allergens near, and why can’t you realize
your desire not to look vulnerable makes you look
more vulnerable? Resting bitch face doesn’t make
me think you’re at all rested or aggressive,
so much as hurt and not getting the therapy
you need. Why can’t you just articulate that
you want to be left alone? Your desire to hoard
power, your desire to turn everything into
a crusade makes no one want to crusade
with you, no one want to confide in you,
everyone want to strip you of those small things
you take pride in that not even your own mother
is proud of. And he looks as if he’s eating hot wings
but he’s really just speaking in public. And he,
well he’s staring at a fishing bobber, waiting…
waiting… waiting… waiting… even though
he’s in the middle of a metropolis. She’s guns
and concrete and steel even though she’s really
daisies and soil and horses. The idea you thought
was a grape gumdrop was really black licorice.
The milk on your Captain Crunch spoiled.
The neighbor not neighborly even slightly.
What happened to returning a wave? I let you
merge in front of me in traffic, I expect a
peace sign instead of a bird instead of apathy.
That wine label and price tag is little indication
of the headache you’ll have in the morning.
And there’s a coffin-maker masquerading
as a carpenter. An ambulance as a hearse.
When every squirrel looks like a potential pet,
cuddly or not. When every virus has the power
to kill you, even if it doesn’t. Someone ready
to explain to, speak for, or think about,
even when decidedly unwanted. He looks like
he’s always going to mansplain, even if he’s
the furthest thing from manhood. And that
looks handcrafted, even if it’s one in a thousand
from today’s glowing forge. Bubbles. Fine art.
Economy. Humility undercutting humility.
And dust to dust. That looks like a theory
without an ounce of practice. And his forehead
is an architectural ornament, akin to the gleam
from the Chrysler Building, even if he’s never
set foot in Manhattan. From a cave to a wigwam
to an opulent railroad car to a space shuttle.
Art Deco disguised as timeless. Concern for
others sold as socialism. One shelter needn’t
look like another shelter. Her speech carries
the cut of an axe even when she’s trying to soothe.
Intervention. Invention. Insurrection. And he looks
like he’s suffering an indignity when he doesn’t
know the meaning of suffering. He smells like
a civilized man, especially when he’s trying to
masque savagery. The type that would sleep
with everyone even if he’s yet to love anyone.
Including himself. Sweating. Lusting. Undressing
with eyes even though he just has an astigmatism.
Guilty when not. And her lips are always parted,
as if she’s about to sing, even if she’s tone deaf.
And he always has an idea, even if he can never
find the words to articulate said idea. What first
looked like a metaphor trying a little too hard
not to be a metaphor suddenly dropped its guise,
and left standing there was truth. At least one
incarnation of it. And so, when I’m gone, don’t
let them put makeup on me so others say, “Oh,
he looks so natural,” when—clearly—natural
is dead. But do know happiness as the goal
rarely works, nor does comparison for the sake
of comparison. And one of my biggest moments
of enlightenment came when I wasn’t seeking it.
It’s when I realized I’m not competing with you—
not competing with you, not competing with you.
A relief even when I wasn’t looking for relief.
Nuance Near Mount Rainier, Washington, 1947
For Kenneth Arnold and Carl SaganYes, I understand it flew like a saucer sounds virtually
like flying saucer, but it soared like a blimp isn’t like
soaring blimps, especially if the antecedent of it is plane
and thus it becomes the plane flew like a blimp
instead of flying blimps, and when in the hell
did all these blimps get here? Moths to flames,
guitar solos to Led Zeppelin. Running over the hills
and faraway isn’t akin to hilly running in the same
way it grew like a weed is not the same as growing
weed or it sprouted like a bean is not the same
as sprouting beans because we all agree green beans
are overrated, even if they are one of the three sisters,
because becaused like a because isn’t necessarily one
of the best clauses, nor one of the wonderful things
he does because because because because of its
antecedent antecedented just all screwed up,
just as concrete is not the same as concreting
antecedents. And now we’ve a nice foundation
to build upon. Kenneth Arnold told one newsman
that it flew like a saucer, but never actually said it was
a flying saucer, and there were nine of them, not one,
and if aliens have been visiting us for the duration
of the planet’s existence, why then did alien sightings
only begin after 1947, when flying saucers first flew
near Mount Rainier and up until that point in time
all those little green men were mostly a version
of The Blessed Virgin Mary herself—sign-of-the-cross—
or some fire-breathing-floating-invisible-incorporeal
dragon in my garage hoax because you can’t disprove
that I have a fire-breathing-floating-invisible-incorporeal
dragon in my garage. Headless horseman not unlike
horsing headless, but a telltale heart is not equal to
a heartening tale. You’d think apparitions & visitations
would at least have the decency to visit a mammal
with more institutional memory than we possess.
Because who’s going to believe this with their own
eyes as wide as aliens, even if we’ve never eyed
aliens, the apostles never apostatized, or blanked
it like a blank, not blanking blank? The absence
of evidence isn’t evidence of absence, the cause
of effect isn’t always the effect of a cause, and
being bamboozled once or for years doesn’t
equate to a perpetually bamboozled being,
so long as you don’t waste that mistake.
This is to say, you may overestimate prayer’s
power almost as much as you cede too much
power to one guy, deifying a demagogue who’s
actually, actively bamboozling your deity’s belief
system. Thus, it looks like I’m going to hell
is not the same as hellish looks. Kenneth Arnold
told one newsman that it flew like a saucer, but
never actually said it was a flying saucer, and
there were nine of them—blimps not newsmen—
not one, and if they’d quoted him accurately,
how differently all those alien abduction stories
would have turned out, and maybe we’d still
be on about shrines, or some other self-fulfilling
prophesy wherein god didn’t make man in
his image or garage but rather man made god
in his own image, somehow now white
& European, or some other form of weird
obsession involving abduction, sexual probing,
acceptance & abandonment, and shared public
vision like a virus like a very old man with
enormous wings, sunflowers not beans sprouting
from the leper’s sores, and would you like to see
the fire-breathing-invisible-incorporeal dragon
in my garage? He’s just floating like a saucer—
just over there, yep right over there—but he’s
definitely not a flying saucer.
Bob King is an Associate Professor of English at Kent State University at Stark. He holds degrees from Loyola University Chicago & Indiana University (MFA, poetry). His poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming from The Red Ogre Review, Unlikely Stories Mark V, The Dillydoun Review, Emergence Literary Journal, American Poetry Review, Narrative Magazine, Muleskinner, Allium: a Journal of Poetry & Prose, The Spoon River Poetry Review, Northwest Review, Quarter After Eight, & Green Mountains Review, among other literary magazines. He lives on the outskirts of Cleveland with his wife & daughters.