#ed shacklee

[batgovernor]

Ed Shacklee, 'So We Beat Them'

One limped a little, and another had a stammer, one was cross-eyed, swarthy, and employed atrocious grammar; so we beat them with a pipe, and then a club, and then a plier, bending them like pretzels after binding them with wire, sending trite condolences with tappings of a hammer. One was far too clever, another drolly thick, one was hyper, one disfigured by a nervous tic; so we beat them with a…

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[batgovernor]

Ed Shacklee, 'Burn'

I took the way of stone, not water, air or fire: one element alone could complement desire. Not to quickly flare, nor to slyly flow – no fickleness of air could whisper where to go; for I was each, in turn, as years unearthed the soul, yet found no way to burn but dark and pressed as coal. ***** Ed Shacklee writes: “I very seldom know what to say about a poem; the cage opens, and the bird flies…

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[batgovernor]

Ed Shacklee, 'I Think Continually Of Men Dressed As Catherine The Great'

Ed Shacklee, ‘I Think Continually Of Men Dressed As Catherine The Great’

I think continually of men dressed as Catherine the Great, Betty Boop or Greta Garbo, queens of film and state who hitched their wagons to a star and switched the sex of Fate. I think of fervid men in furs, the Humphries and the Dannies those lads who walked the walk in highest heels and padded fannies and promenaded on the stage with debutantes and grannies – the young, the old, the gayly bold…

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[inkofthecalamaro]

Poem of the week: “Burn”

by Ed Shacklee

I took the way of stone, not water, air or fire: one element alone might complement desire.

Not to quickly flare, nor to slyly flow – no fickleness of air could whisper where to go;

for I am each, in turn, as years unearth the soul, yet found no way to burn but dark and pressed as coal.

Ed Shacklee is a public defender who represents young people in the District of Columbia. He lives in Takoma Park, Maryland and is working on a bestiary.