What did you do during the war, Mister?
Ten years of junior high and middle school
It never changed
It’s too hard, Mister.
What did you do during the war?
Fresh boys, fresh girls
Already wanting it softer,
A detour, a side-track.
Shut the truck up, roll up the windows,
And park it! You should like it hard!
Did you kill anybody, Mister?
Do we need pencils?
Can you borrow me a pencil, Mister?
Teacher, teacher, it’s too hard!
Ten years filled with rites of passage
Fifteen more at the high schools with junior high
Pie-in-the-sky Dare graduates turned
Wise-guy-and-gal sophomores writing to tell the tale
Juniors writing for the final score still asking
What did you do during the war, Mister?
Seniors best ask which war, foreign or domestic?
What did you do during the war, Mister?
Resolving Teenage Conflict
Larry White, the convertible Pontiac G T O driving rich boy
From Apple Valley called-out the poor kids’ Everyman
Bill Quimby, the bus riding high school quarterback
From Oro Grande
The two senior class boys fought like men, going toe-to-toe
For the hand of Fran, the school head cheerleader
Larry White’s ex, now dating the football star
Far too bitter a pill for a sensitive boy
On depression medication to swallow
Which he didn’t
Afterschool
There ensued between the two a wild zoo brawl
Through the halls the loud juvenile crowd shouted Fight!
Fight! Drawing friends and foes of the combat site
To witness Bill and Larry fight so hard a bout
All concluded Fran was putting out
Why else would Larry beaten down to the ground, jump up
To be beat down, then spring up only to be beaten down again?
Seemed clear to all he couldn’t win
Which he didn’t
The law was call-in and arrived as sheriff duties
They cuffed Larry and put him in the car backseat
To haul away in disgraced defeat
But first Larry broke out the rear squad car windows
Using his head and feet and so authorities need feed him his meds
Which they did
Ode to the First UCLA Mexican-American
Football Team Captain
Me a wanna-be John Wooden junior high school coach,
you a soft handed 300 pound eighth-grader, I longed for
you to be my basketball center--An aircraft carrier to anchor
the team in the low post. A two-fisted hamburger boy you
blew me off professing love for only baseball and football.
My counter-offer of the necessary feet to play either sport
was dismissed with an immature “Nah, Mister, it's all about
first base and the blindside tackle.”
Yet, you backed your braggadocio as a two-sport all-city
High school athlete. Sophomore year you hit the game winner
Off the wall at Dodger Stadium in the City Championship, and,
Although in my opinion, baseball was always your best sport,
You completed your resume with 3 league titles in football.
But in a late effort to prepare for the next level, you played round ball.
Senior year you showed up in a suddenly chiseled frame.
Single-digit body fat. Gone the roly-poly Baby Huey.
From my bungalow room on the gym side of campus, I saw your
New routine of jogging-- It didn't account for the build.
No! It was all that black Mercedes Benz magic. To whom did it belong?
A fan, a friend of the coach, former football playing alumnus Dr. So-in-So?
A big-shot booster of FHS football team wide mean, lean, chiseled, low body fat frames.
But somebody always pays for the get rich injection days.
Oscar, my Oscar, juiced you betrayed your University of Oregon
Letter-of-Intent commitment, backed out of their dual-sport
Scholarship for UCLA football: Fight, fight, fight
But buddy, what good is a fatless frame if on game day you're lame?
Oh Oscar, my Oscar
The red-shirt year, the bad back set back, the bad handicap parking hookup.
But a senior co-captaincy, a cheerleader trophy wife, a pat on the rump and done.
After school social worker, semi-pro then Sunset? Too soon, two sons!
Say the words: Performance Enhancing Drugs, John Matuzak, Lyle Alzado
Steroids and cancer.
Oscar? Oh my, Oscar Cabrera.
Yet your voice still answers, Nah, mister.
Don’t be a hater.
No comments:
Post a Comment