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The Seven Deadly Colors: Green
from the series “The Seven Deadly Colors”;
a series of seven poems originally published in The Lamp-Post.


Bob Johnston

Gabe was three years older than me
but he had no use for books
so we were in the same grade.
Momma was always after him:
“Gabe, why can’t you be more like your brother?”

I finished high school a year early
with nine offers of scholarships
including Harvard. It was a breeze
and I was summa cum laude.

      Gabe dropped out when he was fifteen,
      got his girl friend pregnant,
      did a couple of years in juvie
      for stealing an airplane.

I started up my own company
with a little capital from my father,
and we were there at the right time.
In ten years we were a Fortune 500.

      Gabe worked the drilling rigs for two years.
      Then he got onto Red Adair’s crew,
      snuffed fires and capped off blowouts
      from Afghanistan to Zanzibar.

When the war came along,
I was called to Washington
as a special adviser to the President
to coordinate the defense industry.

      Gabe joined the Marines early on.
      He saw it all, from Pearl to Okinawa.
      He came back loaded with medals
      and an eye patch.

I’ve been married fifty years
to my childhood sweetheart.
The children all turned out well:
Astronaut, doctor, physicist.

      Gabe never married. He always said
      women are where you find them
      but the best of all are in Iran
      once you get behind the veils.

I didn’t plan to get into politics,
but everything fell into place.
Governor, senator, and then
Ambassador to France.

      We heard from him once in a while.
      Shooting scrapes, a bank robbery,
      a plot to blow up the Glen Canyon dam,
      a couple of prison terms.

Life is winding down for me.
I spend my days writing my memoirs.
At Christmas, all the clan gathers,
four generations, still closely knit.
I am reasonably healthy,
have my own teeth
and shoot in the 90s.

      Gabe’s last hurrah was spectacular.
      He highjacked a load of plutonium
      on its way to Los Alamos.
      Things went wrong, a guard was killed.
      Gabe headed for the hills.
      He held out for two weeks in a cave,
      till they starved him out and shot him.

It’s been a good life, and I have no regrets,
but God, how I wish I’d had his.



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