Bob King
Situation: There’s a Pint of Ben & Jerry’s in Your Freezer. How Many Nights Does It Last?
Richard Dawson survey says the number
one answer is… zero. It’s gone the night you
bought it, right? As it was a reward for another
hard week, & when the week started you said,
This week will finally be easier, right? We’re due
for an easy week, finally? Or maybe you got
a smaller than expected raise, but it’s still
something, or you didn’t cry as hard as you
thought you would & being a human being
is often really hard, so Brownie Batter Core,
the entire pint filled with chunks of satisfaction
& only flecks of regret. Or you throw yourself
a small party in your head or you make yourself
a birthday cake & impromptu invite friends
& family to sing to you because during that
song is when absolutely everyone stops what
they are doing & is just present in the moment
focused on one thing, not on the globe spinning,
not on breathing or trying to circulate all
that blood or remember all the lessons you
were ever taught, & because there are few
spectacles that cause absolutely everyone to
stop & focus all at the same time, you bring
out the papery vibrant spectacle that is a
piñata & you & everyone hold their breath
as the one you love the most wipes her hands,
tightens her grip, secures her stance, & then
winds up for her hardest-ever swing, & you
& everyone anticipate the crack, can almost
already feel the candy falling, raining down,
bouncing like raindrops off your hands, off
the pavement, simultaneously wetting the
ground, fulfilling the desire, & exploding up,
cascading back up, the very fine mist painting
a brief & fleeting rainbow across the sky.
*Inspired by Family Feud (with Richard Dawson), 1976-1985, How to Stop Time by Matt Haig (2017), & Rain Wilson and the Geography of Bliss (2023).
Bob King: When I Finally Began Talking to Myself In Sir David Attenborough’s Voice
Because I’ve always been oversensitive to my own shortcomings, & if you think in British, immortality might arrive whilst wearing a many-pocketed travel jacket & worsted wool trousers amid artifacts inside perhaps a heavily tapestried natural history museum. Back when Earth’s atmospheric oxygen content was 35%, common flies could boast a wingspan of 27”—a small television—or 10’ centipedes could corkscrew down the forest floor, but now we’re only at 21% oxygen, so the biggest an insect can get is 6½”—thank god, but is that still burn down the house territory for most of you? I must admit that that was 300 million years ago & who really knows where we’ll be in another 300 million years, other than not here. Most of us think our mothers were here long before us, & in one sense you’re right, thank you very much matrilineal DNA, but in another sense, you should have seen a mother’s wingspan hundreds of millions of years ago. Let’s just watch & see what she does next, what she decides to drag back to her burrow. What she leaves for the rest of the colony. And now I wonder if she’s ever going to die, should-have-been-lethal-spinal-cord-injury & miracle surgery survivor & will it be, in yet another 300 million years, or 3 x 300 million, flying half robot & half microplastic filled giraffes with long beaks, extended warranty telephone salespeople, & Mom? Say, what exactly is the weather forecast for the next 1.5 billion years?
* Inspired by Prehistoric Planet, Apple TV (2022-2023), Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (1861), & Brief Candle in the Dark by Richard Dawkins (2015).
Bob King
Bob King is an Associate Professor of English at Kent State University at Stark. His recent poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming from Olney Magazine, Crab Apple Literary, Words & Sports Quarterly, Erato Magazine, coalitionworks, Gone Lawn, Moss Puppy Magazine, The Daily Drunk, Don’t Submit, Full House Literary, Curio Cabinet Magazine, Moot Point Magazine, The Gorko Gazette, Drunk Monkeys, Paddler Press, Aôthen Magazine, The Purposeful Mayonnaise, Spare Parts Literary Magazine, & Tears, & Bullshit Lit. He lives in Fairview Park, Ohio, with his wife & daughters.