Let Not Your Hart
C Ra McGuirt
for Bret Hart & Mickey Rourke
He was more than a merely exceptional
practioner of the ArtSport;
They called him “Excellence of Execution”—
Every throw and fall and lock
and counterhold was crisp and clean.
Even his Armdrags made the Marks pop,
and Marks nowadays are seldom stirred
by anything less than a Triple Inverted
Shining Spin Burning Suicide Plancha
into the guardrail. His failing (if any)
is not to be found in the ring, but his Book—
(and I say this most kindly, for I am a Mark
for this man as well, and even now proud
to live in the
Province where his sweet old Dad
who could make a longshoreman scream like a girl
kept a Dungeon of Doom in a Calgary basement
to torture and twist him to rise far above
the barely-there other wanna-be Icons
who rule the remains of our once-proud Craft.)
My man’s sense of balance seems a bit off
in his wrestling memoir. To me it all seems
suffused with sad bitterness, sneering, and blame
at the lesser and greater lights of the Game...
Some is deserved—the green-as-grass oaf
who stupidly stiff-kicked his head like ball
which led to concussion, and killed his career,
DESERVED bitter sneers, and he wasn’t all,
but the Fancy Boy Outlaw who put on the smut
and the strut like the Heels who had come long before
made my man mad, and why, I’m not sure—
The ArtSport has never been totally pure.
I’m more sympathetic to other complaints:
The treacherous Boss whose untested machine
literally led to the high-plunging death
of his talented brother, though all the Courts said
maybe. The same scummy dirty Rat-Boss
who smile-lied to his face, and went on to screw
him out of his Title up in Montreal...
Ask any Smart Mark who’s hooked on the Inside
they’ll happily tell you much more than you want
about the Insidious Montreal Screwjob!!!
But as for me, I came here to talk
about my good man, whose hard bitterness
is natural, but
no use now. I know this because
I am myself
a most bitter man. For instance, ask me
about my Insidious Montreal Screwjob!!!
or all those who kicked me without warning first.
I know I should let go the Masterlock Grudgehold
which seems to be cinched in on half of the world—
recall the good times I was thrown and I threw,
was counterattacked, and produced a riposte
which was perfectly foiled, and how all askew
I snuck an expected unwarranted blow
pinned or got pinned, and made the next Show,
and so should my man, for it troubles my heart
that the heart of Bret Hart should be troubled.
