Jamail Center for Legal Research
Tarlton Law Library

Questions after the Freedom Assignment

Would you run back through it again
I didn't get much of it down
Do you think it'll be on the test
Could you talk a little slower
And maybe give some examples
Maybe draw a picture
Is this like having a baby
Is this like gunning a motor
Is this like very important
Will it cost me any extra
Can I get it done by Friday
Can you tell me about the grade
Do we have to be here tomorrow

I Do Not Get to Gobble Gobble

My third-grade teacher
Offers me a part in her Thanksgiving play
I can be the goose she says
 Neither a pilgrim nor an Indian nor a turkey
But just the goose
I do not get to paint my face
Carry a musket
Gobble gobble
I just get to lie there dead like a goose
About to be plucked and eaten
And me the littlest goose in the class not even plump
No thanks I say
The first of many roles I decline to play

And so she chooses my companion in arms
Kenneth Chapman
Next to me
The littlest runt in the class
A goose from the word go
With just the right amount of facial expression
Of limpness in the body
And of stupid satisfaction
At the honored prospect of being eaten
By the fathers of our country
And the girls in the audience note out loud
His cuteness
Cooing
Why don't they just stand up and give him
An ovation
I think
In my somebody-should-have-told-me sulk
And after the applause at the end
Just before the rehearsals begin
For the encore
I advise my instructor
I've taken the matter under consideration
And am willing to offer myself as a goose
A much more dashing and charming goose
Seeing my country needs me
No she says we have a goose
We need you to sit and say grace now

The Hasty Boy
Catches Himself in the Zipper

Unable
Solipsist to correct
This sudden, surprising mis-
Direct, see what I know
Of dangling things: doesn't
Include as yet a name.
Only the fact that this one's stuck
Perhaps this thing (the name I use)
Has a propensity for such.
Disentanglement a terror not
Knowing what precisely but
Mostly my embarrassment
Having to ask
 Someone for such. Whatever I am
Down there or might
Turn out to be,
I certainly do not
Think I'm where
I want to be.

The House of Laryngitis

The students are at their desks,
Pens in hand. Day after day
They sit and transcribe
The ripples, the crests and the dips,
And now the instructor has turned,
And is chalking a chart on the slate.

The assignment is given, and now he turns back
To explain. And finds that the class
Has lasted too long, he has overreached
Himself, and all that he says
Seems rasping, and the pupils all
Seem restive. Wait a bit

Longer, he says, maybe something
Will come out yet:
And finds himself at the edge of the pond,
In a clump of grass bellowing of the evening,
His eyes awaiting the blinding of the flash--
Light, the thrust of the gig

And the pupils are searching
For some abrupt recognition,
Gingerly stepping around the edge,
Trying to keep their feet clear
Of the mud, oh, one says,
You aren't going to tell us what you mean?

The Margins

He comes up to say after class
What did I say and it looks to he
I ought to be able to read
What he has written I am the one
Who has trouble writing
And even the conventional symbols
The notes of his danglings are taken as damns
He'd rather I didn't note his lack of agreement
And most sternly of all he objects to the notion
That he has a problem with his person
And this is maybe the first whole thing
In his life he has written maybe the first thing
In his whole life he has written
And he goes on with this and fills up the back
Of another page all I say deformed and scribbled
Into the margins annotating this
More sprawling statement which marches madly

Through the conventional empty space
On the back where one is accustomed
To make summary statements using time-honored phrases
Good first draft but will need revision
Good introduction but the body needs
Paragraphing indenting each opening needs
Setting off from the margin margins need
To be maintained for what is always being
                                                                   said
Where someone keeps trying to write in            along
What someone has not left much of                      the
What someone will have trouble reading                edges
What someone says that what
The writer has written is hard to read

Sign in the Periodicals Room

Do not reshelve the periodicals.
Do not attempt to do that trick.
Do not try to put them back
On shelves from which you got them.

You have read them. Leave them.
You have browsed through musty rows
And lifted covers to your nose.
Your leaving will not grieve them.

It is not for you to shelve them.
Though you took them, skimmed the pages,
Went into astringent rages
At the way that some would reft them

From the volumes where they found them.
It may be that you have loved them,
Made some use of many of them,
But you're not the one who bound them.

There's a place that they must go.
Where they were is not the place.
Do not go back in fumbling haste
To do the things you do not know.

Do not think they wait for you.
There are others who will take them--
Cart them off and rearrange them.
Someone else will find them too.

Taking the Damage Out

He would have liked to say they both
Ought to have watched where they were going
But he didnt't they hadn't. They'd made a mess yes
They'd had a few problems. They
 Were looking elsewhere and wham
There wham they were.
The eyes said guilty guilty
Then the other
Eyes said back--
Sharp-tongued lawyers, garnishing what
They'd promised, pawning
The noisy old past they said
Go ahead,
They wouldn't expect
As much in the future.

The Old Air

It gathers in the vacant rooms, the air
I am not breathing, the air closed in
Upon itself. Rooms through which I have not moved
For ages lie as I left them, all of the clutter
Of all of the moments before my leavings.
The air is stale with faint remains of hasty
Suppers, dyes of couches, carpets, even
Paints from walls and ceilings start to peel
Into unsettling fragrance. The cooler
Basement air grows rank with moisture,
Curdles in its juices, the wood of the
Dresser down there mildews. No one has breathed
For weeks here, for months, no one has breathed at all

Since I left, nothing but roaches and dead pulp of trees
Stifled in covers of books. The air
Sheds its dust slowly, blanketing with a hush
Desk and paper, stove and sink, broom and
Vacuum--drowsing mother covering
Children. For weeks it waits, for months, it seems,
And no door opens. It curls in
Upon itself and wastes away, ghosts of old air
Seep slowly out through shrinking
Pores. They meet me now, as the key turns,
And the door creaks, and I go in
To the once lived-in house. The house to which
I always meant return.

The air is nothing now but voices, thin
But angry, all of the breath
That is left of lives that have ended
Here, lives I abandoned, mouths
I stopped feeding. I leave my bodies
Behind me. The strangled ones,
The stifled breath, the famished eyes.

The Fleas

The fleas I wrote the receipt for.
The day sweltered, the parties concerned
Sent invitations, the day
 Grew hot and bothered. The guest speakers
Stood up and began to deliver.
The orations attracted a crowd. Miners were filing
Claims in abandoned hotels.
The children screamed for attention.
The hands that would play upon these strings were many.
We fret the skin of which to scratch. This sound
Is far too raucous. If you peel away layer
After layer you will find
These revel-rousers. The picnic is over here,
Down here, that little. I found this
In the flea market and I had to bring it home.

Our Failure to Cancel Fireworks Displays
In a Fire-Prone Season

Fourth of July
And fields are parched.
Trees are burning
Already with autumn.
Water is off
Since noon this morning.
Still as the hungry
Birds clamor evening
My neighbors begin
To celebrate what--
A time for popping
Off--time
For minor explosions--
Time for hot air--
For sudden cata-
Strophic flarings--
Breathtaking--
Colorful--
And sudden--going
As far as they can
And then
Coming back down--
Proclaiming to the skies
And their un-
Winking eyes
Our freedom to spend
Ourselves lavishly across
Our black horizons--
Each fierce
Burn--each
Pop, each fizz,
Each sputter,
A bullet we
Paid for
And now bestow
Upon the void--
Time to light
A match and see
What happens in
The air, the dry

Fields no one thinks of
But those who know
They must live in them
Watching for
Some spark to flare
And take
What drought has not--
The house of wood
Too seasoned for
This waiting for--
Its water off--
The fires to reach it.

Who Killed Her Dog and Put a Snake in Her Mailbox?

This is the same story about the snake and the dog.
The dog was all she had to keep an eye on things.
The snake was what she could do without.
The dog saw something moving.
The snake was not seen at the time but was known to be
   moving.
The snake was what the dog didn't see.
Whatever the dog saw was not the snake
But probably had something to do
With the snake being where it was.
If the snake says it is moving but
The dog doesn't see it, what
Does that say about snakes?
If the dog says it doesn't see
The snake but the snake is moving,
What does that say about dogs?
The dog may have barked.
The dog had established a tradition.
What, you ask, did the dog bark at?
Now the snake was known to be subtle.
If the dog ever let him get close enough
For intelligent conversation
That dog was in trouble.
Howling at the moon is a lonely job.
The woman had long since started ignoring
Her dog and its barking. Some said she didn't deserve
A dog like that to bark for her.
The snake was sent Overnight Express.
It came a lot faster than she expected.
She is going to get over this sooner or later.
Meanwhile she talks a lot on the phone,
And people are stealing her blind.

What to Do about a Dead Grandmother

               1.
What do you do about a dead grandmother
Was the student's question meaning something like
 What would you do if I didn't show up
(Already in fact I haven't shown up if you remember)
And told you the reason
My grandmother who died one morning
Or in the middle of the night
Without giving fair warning would you
Believe me could you overlook
The long line of grandmothers
Who have died in such a manner
In the middle of another semester

              2.
Was she breathing when you last saw her
How long has she been living like this
Do you have a place to put her
Do you know what killed her
Would you like to say anything about her
Bring your grandmother to class and we'll see

               3.
Look at her say does what she is saying make sense
Have you said all that you would like to say
In the way you would like to say it
Now that you have her
Here where you see her
Do you find yourself wanting
To do her over to take her in
To the margins to spell her right
Are you having trouble reading
What you have written
It's your grandmother do you hear what I'm saying
You take her and bury her right

Kenneth King is a native of Kentucky, and taught English at a community college before leaving for law school in 1995. He obtained his undergraduate degree from Berea College, an M.A. from the University of Kentucky, a doctorate in English from the University of Nebraska, and his J.D. from Vanderbilt in 1998. His poetry appeared widely in literary journals and magazines before he went to law school. He reports that he gave up poetry while in law school, "afraid of breaking my heart otherwise." After law school he clerked for the 6th Circuit, worked for Legal Aid, and took up private practice in Somerset, Kentucky.
In the fall of 2003, King returned to full-time teaching in the English Department at Western Kentucky University.
"Questions After the Freedom Assignment," "The Margins," "Our Failure to Cancel Fireworks Displays in a Fire-Prone Season," "The House of Laryngitis" and "What to Do About a Dead Grandmother" first appeared in Poetry Northwest. "I Do Not Get to Gobble Gobble" was first published in Appalachian Journal, "The Fleas" in College English, "Who Killed her Dog and Put a Snake in Her Mailbox" in Northwest Review.