ears

i was born under an illiterate
father
who ruled with an iron heart

lived under his boot for over ten years

we called him our father even though he wasn’t our real father
and memorized poems about his tremendous intelligence
his kindness for all his children pioneers
his terseness for all those who weren’t workers
his slaughter of all those who were thinkers

but he was a literal illiterate
a shoemaker’s apprentice who couldn’t
pronounce certain words correctly

we made fun of him secretly in our house

i would prance around and say those words
he mispronounced for my real father and my mother
and they would laugh and laugh
but quietly

keep it low they’d say
the walls have ears

i drew this picture in 1977 of our apartment building
the ears are over on the sides there
see?

{image:missing}

the left one is kinda off the page
it’s because i didn’t have enough room
didn’t plan it right

but anyway
i drew this picture at my father’s request

he said he’d show em and commissioned this drawing
of our building with large ears

and inside
through each window
every person is in some way or another
listening to their neighbor

over on the roof
(my father instructed)
over on the roof
draw a bunch of antennas

antennas?

yes yes on the roof
antennas
like tv antennas you donkey!!!

this is how my father spoke to me in those days
before i had even turned 9

and so i drew tv antennas on the roof
of our building which had ears
and apartments with people
listening to the walls
and to one another

you’re not doing it right
he’d say
and he’d correct the integrity of some line or
erase a hand or head and show me how
to do it on a separate piece of paper

i always wondered afterwards
why he didn’t do the drawing himself
i assumed maybe he would get
into trouble if
THEY
found out it was him

THEY
knew everything about everyone
and could probably have figured out
it was him

drawing that drawing
for whatever reason my father had
was pure hell

he hit me many times on the face
because this or that didn’t look right

for many years after
i had an aversion to drawing anything
even though i always liked looking at paintings
or any kind of art

trouble was
i was never good at drawing

i was good at reading only

and later i got pretty good
at writing

i probably would have gotten
pretty good at drawing too
but my father and this stupid
commissioned bad chicken scratch picture
he wanted
for some idiotic reason
(which to this day i never figured out)
made me bad at art for the rest of my life

to-day i still love art and drawings of any kind
cartoons
comics
graphic novels or
graphic literature
(whatever the genre is called now)
so much
that all of it has become
another world for me to escape to
(in addition to the reading universe)

it’s a tough world at times
the comic book world
because of the subject matter
but the most wonderful world I can think of

just as wonderful
as that other magical world
music

i wish now i had that picture
my father forced me to do in those days
it would mean so much to me
despite his temper and his hitting

i think
he used it somehow against the government
in his attempts to get us out of the country

to get us out from living
under that illiterate shoemaker’s apprentice

our other father