FRED VOSS

Ready to Ride with Pancho Villa and Ambrose Bierce

Once again
Jane is having Frank clean the big blinds
to Frank and Jane’s 5-foot x 6-foot living room picture windows
and Frank has twisted his back
yanking them off the special holders nailed to the walls
and cradled the blinds that lie in his arms like dusty squirming alligators
as he tries to divert his mind by telling Jane of the mysterious disappearance
of Ambrose Bierce
the great turn-of-the-20th- Century journalist and writer
how Bierce went down to Mexico
to join Pancho Villa’s army as an observer of the Mexican revolution
and then disappeared
forever
and as Frank coughs carrying the dusty blinds
down concrete balcony and stairs wobbling and unable to see
where he’s going
he tells Jane who is walking behind him,
“Bierce disappeared in Mexico.
No one knows for sure what happened to him.
Maybe he was shot to death in a cemetery by a firing squad
or committed suicide in the Grand Canyon
but he was never heard from again….”
as Jane tells Frank not to dent the blinds by banging them
against the staircase walls
and finally Frank makes it down the stairs without falling
and panting lays the sharp-edged blinds down
onto concrete courtyard walkway
in the hot sun
as Jane hands him brush and spray cleaner bottle and tells him to do a better job
than he did
last time
and as Frank gets down onto his hands and knees
on the concrete where ants and snails spend their lives
and stretches his arms until they ache scrubbing
the 60 or so slippery sharp-edged slats of the blinds
as his kneecaps begin to throb on concrete
and a mosquito buzzes in his ear
for the first time it dawns on Frank
that Ambrose Bierce may have really had something—

After all
killing yourself at the bottom of the Grand Canyon
or getting cut to ribbons
by firing squad bullets
can’t be much fun
but at least it doesn’t have to be done
every 3 months.

Fred Voss has had three collections of poetry published by Bloodaxe Books (UK), the latest of which, Hammers and Hearts of the Gods, was selected as Book of the Year 2009 by The Morning Star (UK) and was reprinted by Pearl Editions (Long Beach, CA). It is available on Amazon, along with his first novel, Making America Strong.