vince mcmahon is only a man.
(america, september 28, 1998)
whenever he wrestles he tends to
tear the muscles from his bones.
he stands against the very same
men he pays to fight his televised
battles for him. like disciplining
children he charges into the ring,
cleaving to the dominance he has
predestined in the script. but when
stone cold drove a zamboni through
the heart of the arena, chased by cops
& knocking down the shop lights, rai-
sing hell & pinned vince mcmahon to
the canvas, a small dose of what a lot
of folks say that he’s got coming, just
a small dose amid the violence, the
boss was put in his place, which is
just to say pinned, & even though
this too was only a classic work of
choreography,
& even though it lasted but a flash
in the eyes of the hungry lonesome
crowd, the face of vince mcmahon
for a t.v. frame or two betrayed the
sore truth that he belongs beneath
another, crushed by the weight of
his legs & his loathing & the legend
of him, that this contractually begot-
ten son of his, steve austin could
have killed him if he wanted, in the
wild man to man & shortly after smash
a beer can with his boot & laugh, that
vince mcmahon would perish in the
end, that no one lives forever after
all & flinging useless kicks at the
system as the pigs dragged him
away for real this time, stone cold
steve austin stood tall as texas &
shouted & spit at vince mcmahon,
a texas heat wave rolling mad as
steam in his eyes & for a moment
we could sing fuck the interregnum
we’ll choose our own champion
& our friend the announcer said
you know it’s a damn shame
that mcmahon’s ego is so huge
that he had to create his own
master plan to steal from steve
austin the only thing worth any-
thing in the entire world
(of wrestling)
the god-object of their weird reality
standing under the unavoidable
collisions of their combat
sport & it must have stung his
ears to hear his plan laid bare
like that on primetime t.v., must
have burned his cheeks & even
though the belt lay still gleaming in
the spotlight in the middle of the ring
while the police took his only begotten
son away in handcuffs, he only saw
the crowd on their feet, everybody
standing for the one & only rattle-
snake against the police against
the system against the howling
static, the chasm at the center of
the script. he saw them singing
at his funeral.
Patrick Younger
Patrick Younger is a queer poet and single dad living in Kansas City. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Olney, Stone of Madness, Rejection Letters, and elsewhere. Find him spewing invectives into the void at twitter.com/frontyardpat.