Freak

by Wm. J. Wilson

 

It was more than the banners proclaimed
and beyond the barker's promissorial harangue:
the Pinhead Girl in pinafore and bow,
her face moon-blank as a saucer
and rag-doll legless from dragging in the dust,
arrayed before the endless gaping crowds
coming and going like the disconnected
moments of her being.
Obliquely to the rear, her mother,
watchmistress and guardian, reigns like a
chill vestal returning the crowd's inquisitive
animal stare with conquering clarities of hate.

© 2005 Wm. J. Wilson

Wm. J. Wilson (Insomnia, Freak) was raised in a totally dysfunctional family in Memphis and graduated from Christian Brothers HS and Memphis State University. He moved to Huntsville in 1959 to join the von Braun team as a computer jock and eventually became a database and computer security consultant with the Sperry Univac Corporation (later UNISYS), retiring in 1990 to pursue his lifelong interests in writing and making mosaic art. When he was a child, his piano teacher's husband was an occultist with the best library in Memphis. While waiting for lessons, he learned much more about magic and divination than ever he learned about music from his wife. She was a good teacher but he was a hopeless student with two left hands. However, the magic arts were another matter entirely. He was an adept by the age of ten. It worked all too well and he had to ultimately give it up as well. However, his penchant for the gothic, which began in those days, is still reflected in his writing and world-view. About all this, he can only say, "As my will, so mote it be."