Kenny, A Mosaic

“…to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than… to blossom.” –
Anais Nin

To many, Kenny’s a nobody – which is why he wanted to shine, to prove them wrong. 

Would that I could share my light with Kenny, give him another chance

To fit in, to be normal.  Since I can’t, I will share Kenny’s light with you,

Break it into wafers.

Death Row, Death Throws…

We slam, we scream, we fling ourselves against prison’s cosmic ennui.

We remember life from before, our memories another spectrum of light.

The texture of some memories never change; these lights refuse to go

Quietly into that goodnight.

Sometimes a soul’s meat-vehicle remains behind long after the light

Has gone.  Kenny remembers the moment his light divorced his body,

Remembers when it tore itself free – remembers it half as action sequence,

Half as background requiem for a dream.  His bodily

Memory knit together with eye-witness testimony, here tells

You his story, sings you a history, a chorus of blood sung

With words twinkling in air like asterisks.  It was preceded

By a blinding flash of light, an insight that had sounded green,
As in the moment is ripe, as in… GO.

We all pass with varying degrees of light.

Blossom…

Perhaps the idea began as a flower – it felt like one

At the time. One of those pretty, yellow-faced ones

With white petals.  Aster.  Or perhaps it started as a small star-

Like flame, a sad blue torch of forked flower in the brain.

A risky idea one might symbolize in writing:  *.  An asterisk

Indicated omission ((of common sense?)), redaction, doubtful matters.

Portents…

aster:  a pejorative suffix denoting something that imperfectly mimics

The true thing – a bootlegged or knock-off version, for example.

aster is also a combining form meaning ‘star’, which implies

Anyone can be a star – anyone can shine like the popular guys

Simply by stamping aster onto their chest, by declaring, “Let me

Be light!” like in Genesis.

“dis” is a prefix meaning asunder, part, away or having a negative

Reversing force
, as in disability.  As in disaster, which is an unfavorable

Aspect of a star, emblazoned red, as in:  Kenny, the stars do not fucking

Align.  As in:  Kenny, this will rip your asunder, break you apart, and

Your ‘you’ will go away… but Kenny refused to see this light.

Men were slamming bone-yellow dominoes into stainless steel 4-way tables,

Hollering multiples of five and clattering their bones into position.  Like built-in

Bleachers, three blocky 18-inch deep steps cut into the rim of the day-

Room’s brownish-gray concrete floor, leading down to the lower cells.

Playing follow-the-leader exercises, acrobatic men would balance

On the top-step’s ledge, lean out with upsweeping arms – then leap

To grab the tier’s floor, to do pull-ups or show-off by monkeying

Up, once their bodies stopped wobbling.  Kenny used to watch them,

Wishing upon those stars…

In Carnations, A Cautionary Tale…

Slow, fleshy red haloes spread

And overlap like Venn diagrams laid on cement,

Petaling around Kenny’s blank comatose face

As a silken illustration of the relationship

Between grace and ground.

Soundgarden…

Light is such a fickle thing.  Kenny had tried to swing for it with a tottering

Leap.                       There was a split-second grace period. *****:

In linguistics, asterisks mark an utterance that would be censored

By native speakers of the language.  Generally a fall

From grace is blackhole – interesting, especially when it’s a superstar.

We anticipate a comeback…                     but

With us mundane asters, there is no coming back.  There

Is just a discordant **          *          ***

                     ***     **               *

       **           **    burst of asterisks that flap in the air

Like Kenny’s arms, or a flood of cusswords at startled bus stop pigeons.

Then silence.

The very air becomes electric with prayer, or JESUS… the name

Itself a form          of intercession.  Then a meaty thud

And a terrible revelation

Of Kenny’s horror obscurus, his brain a pinkish-gray

Light leaking from Kenny, after aster in brain, after Kenny-aster

On air, after air on bone, after bone on stone.  Thunk, crack,

The genesis of a ravaged lack of all it means to be human.  A shadow

Grows from a length of gauze wrapped round and round

A star.                                      That was in ’97.

My dawg, his dog…

Every few minutes Kenny’s dementia seems to chase down his recent

History and tear chunks from its ass.  I call Kenny my ninja, since

I’m Asian.  His cane we call the Cadillac to convert limpin’ to

Pimpin; his wheelchair the Escalade for which I made a cardboard

Vanity plate that dangles from its back – to infuse his disability

With style, luxury, richness.  With privilege, with ease.  Nowadays

He chuckles and calls himself stuntman stumbles (in his garbled drawl)

Or Stag Lee, a fitting confusion of Bruce Lee, “staggering,” and Stan

Lee the Marvel creator.  Shit’s funny, but shit ain’t funny funny. 

Dark Matter…

The brain is a self-contained universe made up mostly of star-shaped

Cells:  astrocytes, billions and billions of them, crackle with magic energy.

Hidden in blackness, the brain explodes with asterisks of thought.

It is the seat of language, music, motion… personality.  A lump

Of grace that will shine until we die, but… sometimes

Stars flicker and wink out, entire galaxies have power outages,

And the wrinkled surface of the deep becomes void:  dementia

Steals the self.  It would be simpler if one just vanished

The sun – not this gradual decay into the sightless realm where darkness is

                awake upon the dark.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR. George Wilkerson lives on Death Row. He has been writing for some time, and it is a privilege to share his voice here. He has incredible insight and actually advised WITS in certain aspects of our organization, for which we are very grateful. Mr. Wilkerson can be contacted at:
George T. Wilkerson #0900281
4285 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4285

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