April 7: Poem 7

When Davey Boy Smith

Threw the Hammer into the corner

And the Dynamite Kid 

Delivered a headbutt

Michael T. Desing Day 

was born.

It is here, yes today,

Michael T. Desing Day.
Huzzah and Hurray.

All the kids say, 

- I say that they say -

Today is the day.

Michael T. Desing Day.

***

But thirty-six years later

I see the drug abuse;

The way Dynamite 

broke his back

in an unplanned fall.

We didn't know if yet,

But his career was over.

And I know now

The Dynamite Kid

would kill a cigarette 

in a single drag 

before matches

And Davey Boy

once got milk 

injected in his ass

because he thought 

it was steroids.

And I

Doctor Michael T. Desing

am a collection of

scars and bruises

of losses and disappointments

of folly and fear.

As are we all.

As are we all.

We are not superheores.

None of us.

Our superheroes

are not superheroes either.

And today is the day.

Michael T. Desing Day.

Notes

Well, then. This is all a true story, by the way.

I remember so many images around Wrestlemania 2: April 7, 1986. I was fourteen, and pro wrestling was my world as much as comic books, GI Joe, and Star Wars were. They all eventually merged into Army Ants, which had a 12-issue storyline centered around my love of pro wrestling, becoming the first graphic novel - the first long work of any kind - I would finish. As I watch the match again this morning, as I do on every April 7, I feel both sad and nostalgic. Hence, the poem. I decided after that match that, since my birthday was the day after Christmas and I always felt like I missed out on something, that it was appropriate to have a random day in the calendar to celebrate 'me' - that was not so random after all. Here it is, April 7. 

It's Michael T. Desing day.