Terry Murcko: A Truckload of Imaginary Dynamite

(The radio said Norman Mayer died threatening the Washington Monument, Dec. 18, 1982.)

The journey of a life becomes a list:
Born in Texas, orphaned, lost in New Orleans,
A defiant twelve-year-old with bloody fists
Sent to trade school, found his genius for machines.

Denver tool and die, gold mining in Alaska,
Shacking up with pretty girls along the way,
Double shifts from Puerto Rico to Nebraska,
Drafted after Pearl Harbor in LA.

Post-war get-rich-quick Miami machinations:
Packing with nitrogen to keep foods on the shelf
And feed a hungry world without refrigeration,
Crafting surgery tools he tried out on himself.

For protesting the conditions on the shop floor,
Jumped by company goons and beaten half to death,
He recovered and returned to give those goons more
Than they gave, picked up his pay, and calmly left.

He’d decided he was taking shit from no one,
That he was not a pawn to play upon.
He’d work enough to save a stake, or till he’d had all he could take,
Then travel on until the money was all gone
With a truckload of imaginary dynamite.

He left a hotel job’s Jamaican paradise
For machining aircraft parts in Vietnam
Where he saw women fight on one handful of rice
Against the random murder of the lamb.

He broke his leg, an oil rig roughneck in Brunei,
Then forced to rest and heal in Singapore,
He took the sweetest little girl his money could buy
And was taken for twelve thousand by the “whore”.

He limped aboard a train bound for Bombay,
Then a ship, but disembarked before Mombassa
For three years on the beach of lazy days,
Brief island sunsets, creme de menthe, and marijuana.

~

Now fifty-six and too old for the young girls
(He bragged he’d bedded down a thousand, maybe more)
He yearned for some real purpose in the world,
But sailed for Bangkok to make one big final score.

He stuffed forty pounds of dope into a statue,
Five more inside a clock, all he could buy,
On a plane bound for LA in a final desperate play
To sell it off, have one more good time, and then die
With a truckload of imaginary dynamite.

Caught red-handed, rotting in a Hong Kong jail,
He studied British law to beat the rap.
Deported, on a quest, his Holy Grail
Made Washington the middle of the map.

Working triple shifts at hotels in Miami,
He saved eighteen grand to fund his escapade,
Bought a big, old step van—paid cash—then he
Headed north on his first and last crusade.

He tried to buy eight thousand pounds in Kentucky,
Was betrayed, arrested, questioned by police.
Was it deliberate deceit, or was he lucky
And empty-handed, had to be released.

For months he ‘d park nearby a White House sidewalk,
Unload his plywood signs, preach against The Bomb,
And like other crackpots, talk and talk and talk
Till his patience and his money were all gone.

He asked a friend to help him blast a massive icon,
But rejected, he would go it all alone.
For ten hours of one day he held all Washington at bay
To prove that he could get blood from a stone
With a truckload of imaginary dynamite.

Some get fifteen minutes air-time; some get less.
Some will have to play the loony to be wise.
Some go quietly, some make a noisy mess
And mask their dignity in ludicrous disguise.

The tragic-fool regains the grace of play,
Redeems his folly when he finally plays for keeps,
Dancing atom-blasting laughter at our Doomsday
He dreams a chance to wake the heart that sleeps.

In a motorcycle helmet and a snow suit
He dared them not to treat him as a clown.
I’ve got help inside,” he said, “You’d better not shoot.
Yeah, I got enough to knock this fucker down.

We’ve spilt trillions on this stark futility,
Built monuments to human brain decay.
What MAD logic: to insure security
By threatening to blow the thing away!”

We choose to be a zombie or a martyr,
Or fat and satisfied with no complaint,
An idiot, a critic, a millionaire, a cynic,
Or a lunatic, a teacher, and a saint
With a truckload of imaginary dynamite

He strutted as he preached, and he demanded
That we begin, this instant, to disarm.
He monitored the air-time he commanded,
His image in the snowsuit’s child-like charm.

As tear-gas filled the nation’s phallic pride,
He knew they’d soon be onto his charade.
He made it to the step-van, climbed inside,
Fired it up and tried to slowly drive away.

They claimed that they were aiming at the tires.
He took four hits, one cleanly in the head,
To prove there are at least three kinds of liars:
The coward, the convenient, and the dead.

Their question met his last breath at the scene;
They dragged him through the windshield to the ground,
And bleeding with the oil and gasoline,
His final lie was: Yes, eight thousand pound.

The bomb squad hovered at the capsized van
Lifting out, like sleeping babies in the night,
Gifts more precious than youth, lies more cogent than truth,
Empty boxes full of Norman’s dynamite,
A truckload, of imaginary dynamite.

~~~~~

A voice in Youngstown poetry for over 40 years, Terry Murcko helped Jim Villani start PigIron Press in the ’70’s. He recently won a prize from the Robinson Jeffers Tor House Foundation, and is included in the anthology Fallen City Writers. He writes daily, completes at least one new poem each week, and participates monthly in the Last Exit poetry readings in Kent, Ohio where he recently performed this poem.

Copyright 2024 Terry Murcko