I took the toothpick from my lips and flung it across the room but seized with a dark premonition watching it fall transformed and that slight thing that little spit covered stick become a blood thirsty killer. A paratrooper from Hell descending slowly with knife gripped by the teeth spraying the sunless night with a Thompson submachine gun. Ah you tommy rot bastards will pay. Blam! Blam! It is D-Day.

Amongst the past few weeks pile of papers and magazines paper plates bowls cups and wadded up underwear where the author on arising his bed must wade through his own dross filth and muck to answer the call.
But some sixth sense had tipped me to the fact that yon wooden bit of debris had fallen far closer to the corpus of the large poets own bloated body and alarmed.

Bite Me! screamed the little pointy wooden headed.... To me! Rally to me! Rolling over then I am pierced cried the author as Tiny his faithful lawn man fellow poet and prison guard waddled into the room blocking the light and in the sudden darkness. Where is it? Where is it? Do you see it under you Sir! the scum sucker? Come Out! Come out where ever you are. Tiny it's another God Damn loose toothpick. It's the second one this year. I'll have your nuts for breakfast.

Yes Sir! Blam! Blam! Two loud gunshots. Did you see the squirrel? Tiny knelt and reloaded his shotgun. Stay still Sally it's in your bed but I for one mean to blast that Hell beast back from whence it's come. KERBOOM! God Damn the car alarm the siren and the horn.... No Tiny a toothpick a toothpick. He swiveled his gun till I was looking straight down the barrel. Oh please please Tiny it's me your warden. Stand Down! Put the gun down soldier. Dismissed!

I'll find the toothpick myself. The door blew off the hinges Red Alert! Code Thirteen! Red Alert! Code Thirteen! Red and Yellow is down! Red and Yellow is down! Tiny fell on top of me. Oomph! What the Hell do you think you're doing? Extraction under fire Sir! Stay down! Now! Now! Go! Go! Go! Four large football player sized poets dashed into my room. For God's Sake! Be careful what you're stepping on cause that's my latest pome! You'll have to be quiet Sir! We're still under fire.

The car alarms wailed in the background and I heard the chattering of the squirrels. I'm you see how it is these heightened post 9/11 heavy security conscious days. They lifted my twin bed raced half carrying half flinging me. I gripped tight the edge of the mattress. They flung me through the door. All five huge poets muscled my bed across to a trapdoor in the floor. Then like pallbearers lifted my coffin my bed and at the command Secure Red and Yellow Execute! dropped me down the hole.

So I dropped free fall several stories beneath the former headquarters of the N.W. Chapter of INIUSA the inner sanctum of Temple 13 and the current location of L.A.W.N. I fell far into Zone Zero's deepest subterranean pit splashed and floated in that fathomlessly deep secure bunker. I sat awash my bed pitching amidst undulating waves whose each fall and flush loosed anew from the archives shelves and the waters crept inch by inch foot by foot filling my head my porcelain chamber up.

The President of the United States hath saved us both body and soule. It's Global Warming. When these rains cease to fall and if only I had the wisdom to use waterproof ink. This is a mere bump in the road don't you see. Cheer up all is not lost. KERBOOM! Don't fear my friends the sun will shine again for you. I would gladly give my life at this moment. Never mind as long as I have a hole where I can lay my head.... car alarms falling timber mortars incoming mines mines KERBOOM! KERBOOM!

You sir are my Commander in Chief and I will follow you anywhere. Good Morning, Thanks for coming in. I appreciate your support. Keep up the good work. This little setback presages a triumph all the more glorious for the challenges we face and We Shall Overcome and that Grand Magnificent Victory You Noble Hearted Heroes You the Living and the Dead shall stand this sacred ground washed with our Fathers and Mothers blood and take back please fill in this form....

My Captain Oh My Captain
by Paul Lambert

with much great affection for
Oh Captain My Captain
by Walt Whitman
"This is my playes last scene, here heavens appoint"
by John Donne

LAMBERT AMERICAN WRYTING NETWORK