It was about the professional wrestlers of Milwaukee. Or at least I think they were from Milwaukee, since I was watching them on TV Sunday mornings in Milwaukee. They were jumping off of the turnbuckle. Slamming their bodies off of the not soft bouncy shaking floor of the ring. Administering headlocks, knee raises to the face, even tumbling oh out of the ring. How could their bodies take it? In any case, the poem meditated on each of the wrestlers' names that I could remember, all evocative of something, even to me as a child. The Crusher: mad, unpredictable strength. Baron von Raschke: cunning, with a secret weapon - The Claw. Greg Gagne: fair play and proof that a slender person could be a powerful fighter if he had intellect and quickness. Vern Gagne: a patriarch of the Gagne wrestlers, solid, wise, protective... now I didn't articulate any of this at the time - I was probably eight years old - but I sensed it. The poem was written down on a scrap of paper. Somehow it slipped away from me. Maybe it made its way up to Milwaukee where a retired wrestler could read it.
No comments:
Post a Comment