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    Point Running
    Point Running
    Point Running
    Ebook151 pages1 hour

    Point Running

    By BearManor Media

    ()

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    About this ebook

    A character-driven collection of three chapbooks in one. Exploring the
    glory of those who have the courage to run from something.

    A cow farmer’s married just the wrong kind of person and has to run.
    An agent for autopsy doctors has to run down the man who ran out on
    him, just for curiosity’s sake.

    The daughter of a lukewarm poet runs after the father who ran out on
    her; she doesn’t want kids but she’s curious about her dad’s genetic makeup,
    just in case her would-be husband forces her to change her mind
    about family.

    BEN OHMART runs BearManor Media, a publisher of entertainment
    biographies, and is the author of books on Mel Blanc, Don Ameche, Joan
    Davis and others. He lives in Kyoto, Japan, thankfully unaffected by
    March 11th.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBearManor Media
    Release dateAug 3, 2015
    ISBN9781310387388
    Point Running
    Author

    BearManor Media

    We specialize in entertainment biographies on the stars and supporting players of film, TV, stage and radio. With over 250 titles in print and more coming every month, we are dedicated to preserving the past!

    Read more from Bear Manor Media

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      Book preview

      Point Running - BearManor Media

      Classic Cinema.

      Timeless TV.

      Retro Radio.

      BearManor Media

      BearManorBear-EBook

      See our complete catalog at www.bearmanormedia.com

      Point Running: Poems

      © 2015 Ben Ohmart. All Rights Reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopying or recording, except for the inclusion in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher.

      This version of the book may be slightly abridged from the print version.

      BearManorBear

      Published in the USA by:

      BearManor Media

      PO Box 71426

      Albany, Georgia 31708

      www.bearmanormedia.com

      eBook construction by Brian Pearce | Red Jacket Press.

      Do not read these simple statements until you’ve read the book:

      A character-driven collection of three chapbooks in one. Exploring the glory of those who have the courage to run from something.

      A cow farmer’s married just the wrong kind of person and has to run.

      An agent for autopsy doctors has to run down the man who ran out on him, just for curiosity’s sake.

      The daughter of a lukewarm poet runs after the father who ran out on her; she doesn’t want kids but she’s curious about her dad’s genetic make-up, just in case her would-be husband forces her to change her mind about family.

      Ben Ohmart runs BearManor Media, a publisher of entertainment biographies, and is the author of books on Mel Blanc, Don Ameche, Joan Davis and others. He lives in Kyoto, Japan, thankfully unaffected by March 11th.

      For Jason Logan

      Because you’re so damn smart

      xxxxx

      her and I were like the lick

      between your fingers to get the bag open:

      there’s something there

      for the greater good, to do something

      but when you’re done,

      it’s just spit

      realize this is just my story

      merely that, like which way

      the cat’s going to come

      with both of you calling

      think of the hills of Kentucky

      and breathe in all that cow

      because that’s the only thing

      you’ll see, smell, wonder about

      no cable nor cable modem out here

      this is where people like your grandma

      have warm card decks on the hutch

      out in the open, ready to be seen

      and played with, when talk wasn’t cheap

      but traded evenly and with butter on the breath

      a horse is a car and you get the idea

      you have an audience with your wife

      the pear me and May’d split

      if conflab is a piece of fruit, I’d always

      be the one to cut in — remove the seeds —

      hand her a piece, not because I had to

      but sometimes with some peoplefolk

      if you don’t take charge, you don’t eat

      whatever I wanted to talk about

      was what she talked about

      I talked about that, I mean I asked her

      about that, but she was one of those

      nonever minders that grandma started out as

      it wasn’t that May had an old mind

      but she had no opinions

      it wasn’t that she didn’t care, I think,

      about where we had dinner

      those couple times in our lives we’d eat out

      but maybe she didn’t like being our divining rod

      this is me personally talking

      because this isn’t the kind of thing you

      get fact outa her, she won’t talk

      even if that’s the way you’re leaning

      she didn’t want to be blamed

      if the food was black, the service ignored you,

      and it has happened

      if the shoes were too tight,

      maybe I should buy them

      that rationale of station

      you know,

      but not a vain or complex woman

      she was simple, called herself simple

      and you can’t extinguish that with

      simple minded gab

      she was smart on the word searches

      and if you hummed a tune you couldn’t catch

      she was sure to offer suitable service

      after just a couple squirts

      that’s the kinda woman to have

      so you just get used to making your mind up

      every morning with the bed, every nightcall

      when the radio has to turn on,

      what’s for dinner, what’s for breakfast

      and she didn’t mind making it

      I could’ve squandered a morning on

      kangaroo pie with jellyfish on rusk

      and that’s exactly the gist of what I’d receive

      in the house or no

      there’s a cousin between being

      used to something and liking it

      we all get comfortable with the chair

      then it breaks and your butt don’t feel well for it

      until both amples of fat have a chance to settle in

      this is how it went

      for years

      on years, and I was getting on

      and May had herself a spell with her arm

      and learnt most things with her right,

      being a lefty after all, she was an amateur sport

      we knew each other, we were used to the sight

      the smells, we timed each other out

      for the bathroom, for what had to happen and

      what didn’t have to if it wasn’t time for it

      there was sex and the talk of love and no kids and

      no animals because it gave us that sense

      of getting off the farm even though both

      of us knew it couldn’t happen because

      when you’re in charge of more cows than

      one cares to admit to, you can’t just up

      and call them together, not even if a tornado comes up

      and say, Girls, we’re off

      then take your Alaskan cruise like that

      I did have a desire or a dream or a wakey dream

      that we’d loaded all them up onto a boat

      geared by the Love Boat people, so there was

      laughing out of nowhere whenever there was

      a cow on deck in between Gary Burghoff and

      Don Ameche, then more come on in

      but if you don’t have a cat to concern yourself with

      you can tell you and your self and her

      that anytime you feel like upping

      there it is

      the door

      you know what it’s for, but what’s best is

      it’s completely usable.

      this is what we silently promised ourselves

      reneged on and got on with our lives of

      growing up and out separately

      sure, I got out the cards — Rummy was our game

      and we had a collection of cds from oldies.com

      ordered from the library computer

      that told our years together:

      we’d been to a Hall & Oates concert once

      oh yes

      sat so far away from the chubby blonde guy

      who wore sunglasses all through the thing

      that I could barely recognize the tunes as they came past

      then the figures a couple chairs over started to stand

      and clap all the way thru, but that’s for another time

      point being told, I tried to keep us up on

      growing together through the gift of compatible literature

      like foods

      the art of conversation

      while she painted with her fingernails

      there wasn’t much to her part

      after a time, you stop trying to

      have you ever nattered a long time at a wall?

      what’s it going to say?

      there’s my point told

      every day I’d greet the sun with my hands

      on some cold cow that would groan

      no matter what I did

      I spoke to Nel and Quinn and the rest of them

      saving my best jokes for them, because like plants,

      they can see through you

      a laugh’s not a laugh unless your belly yeah quivers

      if you put on something

      it doesn’t necessarily do good

      it might set there

      it might eat away at the inside of a cow

      like pouring coke in a steak,

      though I’ve always doubted that one

      point being told that I could make myself

      laugh with these choicers, and that’s what’s called

      high frivolity.

      makes the milks feel good

      not belly churning milkshakes

      but there’s a goodness that comes out

      same thing with May

      except that

      I’ll blame myself for this here

      I kind of stopped trying to reach her

      sure, there was a week I did my cow jokes

      but what happens when your wife

      doesn’t laugh at you? I mean intentional

      do you keep going at it?

      I tried on this thought for a while

      no response

      well

      maybe once a month

      then I was sweet to her instead

      romantic, like

      the weeks before we were married

      when everything I said seemed to matter

      I got the attention

      like no attention I never got

      from my dad, not from my brothers

      not from the last few years with May

      that’s for sure

      which could’ve been the end of myself

      the self I’d spent so much time developing

      who you think you’re

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