Plastic Gore

To tie down the days, every week,
In the haze before girls or essays
Were able to maim in such cold ways,
In innocent bays of naïve grace,
Father taught son and played.

The living room became a battlefield;
Cowboys and Indians fight
At decisions of dice;
Army men toppled, flayed in 10-pin daze,
Like skittles, scuttled, and scattered,
From bludgeoning shots of a rubber.
Allies and Germans faced each other,
Or knights defending a castle downed,
Unable to keep the keep from a kid,
To stand as strong as dad did.

In the games displayed on the floor,
Over a smorgasbord of plastic gore
Deciding men’s deaths
As he and his litter natter,
Was how we’d connect.