<div class="line">The day my sister was born</div>
<div class="line">my father stayed away from the hospital. </div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">A rocky pregnancy, laborious labor and it was 1962</div>
<div class="line">and fathers were told to keep clear. </div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">Besides, I needed him here to heat cans of Chef Boyardee,</div>
<div class="line">stir the silted Tang in my glass, frown over the sports page</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">and hold a needle to the match flame, squeeze my fingers too</div>
<div class="line">tight and pry the splinter from my palm. </div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">Next day at school I found forbidden chips in my lunch bag,</div>
<div class="line">a tuna sandwich with too much Miracle Whip, Twinkies and </div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">a bit of ash from his glowing Pall Mall and my baby sister</div>
<div class="line">came home squalling that same afternoon and after that</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">we got old and much later he died, all of it just the way</div>
<div class="line">it was supposed to go though nobody thought so at the time.</div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/ChandlerChandlers.mp3"></audio></figure>

A Widow Discovers Her Tires Are Bald …

We Saw Mother!

The Chandlers

<div class="line">Even now more eloquent</div>
<div class="line">than those long April twilights</div>
<div class="line">we’ve spent with our American cousin,</div>
<div class="line">where over and over the finest actor</div>
<div class="line">of his time catches a spur on the bunting,</div>
<div class="line">limps to the fresh horse waiting forever</div>
<div class="line">by the backstage door and yet again</div>
<div class="line">a nation mourns, pushes grimly on</div>
<div class="line">through the centuries watching you ride</div>
<div class="line">that stone throne, your face a country</div>
<div class="line">of sharp angles where irony</div>
<div class="line">meets sadness, staring out.</div>


Career-Minded

Ringo Starr Answers Questions on Larry King Live About the Death of George Harrison

A Kind of Lincoln

<p style="padding-left: 0px;">
He spread out his life which I sliced into words,<br />
for although he had long owned the script rights<br />
outright, his tweaking needed twisting:<br />
<em>change</em> he would say when he meant desire;<br />
<em>love</em> he would say when he meant desire.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">Long down the languid afternoons he’d watch<br />
flies buzz in terror at the screens, trying to escape<br />
his dolor. He’d tell them his heart was an orange,<br />
a tiny chipped cup locked deep in a dungeon<br />
in France, then glance over to make sure<br />
I’d scrape off the cheese:<br />
all that failure and reward endured,<br />
the midget uncle who’d fondled his knees.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">Much later, as evening swelled to burst<br />
before spilling its black ink so no one would see,<br />
he rose up like smoke into roseate sky,<br />
cloaked in the eloquence of his silence<br />
with me choking back on the dust he dissolved to,<br />
still clacking out the money-shot adjectives.</p>


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December 12, 2013A Kind of LincolnTom Chandler

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December 12, 2013A Kind of LincolnTom Chandler

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