Fowler’s Revenge

1.

There is this dummy quality about it all.
A sprawling suspension bridge vastness about 
the ambition if not the foresight.
I sit, surrounded by numerous bird-hatched plans.
Drinking down all the man’s beer, 
and none of his ideas.

2.

You are predictable as a subway train.
Eat, sleep, drink, talk the same so that
the sum of your habits make you an easy target.
Just two days ago, you were under surveillance.
From some tired hock shop camera
with a faulty aperture that has seen
better days.


3.

Time casts doubt, that is true,
so that anyone who waits on anything 
becomes less the suspect and more 
the patient opportunist all the time.

4.

I don’t care what you did or didn’t do.
This is Fowler’s revenge.
I hear you’re teaching his own children to hate him
which is utterly deplorable.
Keeping him from seeing them,
but such revelations come second hand.
I am friends with both of you
which makes this all the more difficult.

5.

Distance is another consideration.
No one could have invaded Russia 
from the pleasure-seeking funhouses 
of Coney Island.

6.

I hear you have taken up with your legal counsel now,
please tell me it is not true.
The rumour mill never stops spinning.
I hear it is still on the sly.
He is in it for the favours as much as you are
for the money.  And he is married,
please tell me this is not true.
Perhaps you have already made 
your calculations.

7.

Fowler made good on his threats tonight.
Not against you, but himself.
The one he always hated most 
according to the letter.
I walked in and had to cut him down.
So blue in the face he looked like some dangling 
pathetic Picasso which angered me.

And the smell, let me tell you!
All alone in that sorry basement apartment.
After everyone had left.

8.

I guess you get full custody.
I hope you are happy.
A phone call would be nice.
We used to be friends.

9.

Tell Jimmy happy birthday.
I believe this would be his ninth.
I hope you got the gift I sent.
The mail is sporadic these days.