Download - The Buffalo
University of Northern Iowa
The BuffaloAuthor(s): Peter WildSource: The North American Review, Vol. 257, No. 3 (Fall, 1972), p. 45Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25117366 .
Accessed: 12/06/2014 21:09
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-I'm on the ground. They didn't get the mike ....
Something's wrong with my leg ... .
People are all around
me, fighting ....
My breast hurts. Feels like a corkscrew
.... Oh, I can't move. I can't . . . When are the police
going to get to me? ... I see them! They're . . .
they're
beating everybody. People are running from the clubs.
Somebody's tripped over me. His head's a mess. Clots of
dirt and blood .... NO! OFFICER! FM NOT DOING
_Ugghhh. ?Come on, sweetheart.... Nice little ass you got there.
Put a bag
over your head.... How's that feel, sweetheart?
Like to feel his big brother?
A car door slams, and there is only the sound of con
tented breathing.
******
e account of the incident which appeared in our little
metropolis newspaper thirty-five miles down the road ran as
follows:
Seventeen persons were arrested yesterday when police were
called onto the university campus to quell a disturbance involving several hundred students. After students ignored orders to dis
perse, the police moved in to prevent further injuries. Forty-six
persons, including several police officers, received medical treat
ment at the university hospital for wounds resulting from rocks and bottles hurled by students. Fifteen were hospitalized.
Among those hospitalized was Miss Inez Lumpkin, a graduate student in English and the alleged instigator of the disturbance.
She is quoted as having shouted, "Off the fascist pigs, "
when the
police arrived on the scene. According to witnesses, she had
been previously quoting North Vietnamese propaganda.
According to a university official, who has requested
anonymity, Miss Lumpkin is a member of a hippie love-cult
resembling the cult of Charles Manson, the California mass
murderer, who has been sentenced with three others to die in the
gas chamber. "We have evidence that Miss Lumpkin was at the time of her
arrest conspiring with a goon-squad of outsiders smuggled on the
campus for that purpose to take over the Humanities and Social
Science buildings and rename them Happiness U., "
the official stated.
Miss Lumpkin has been suspended from the university. She is
charged with disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, inciting to riot, and conspiring to commit a felony. She is
being treated at the university hospital for a leg fracture and
head injuries received from a rock thrown by an unidentified
student, according to police authorities. She will be transferred to the county jail to await trial upon her release from the
hospital Bond has been set at $75,000. When asked what her next move would be, Miss Lumpkin
replied, "Any of several things. The possibilities are infinite. "
1 he possibilities are infinite, Inez. Once out of the dark woods of justice, you could join in a conspiracy to trans
form Humanities and Social Sciences into Happiness U. You could seek out the boy who would be happy to stick his six inches up your gigi. You could weave bright rugs with arabesque designs to hang over your kitchen windows. You could play hopscotch on the university walks. You could wend your way to North Vietnam and volunteer to be Hanoi Hannah. Or you could finish your doctoral dis sertation on the poetry of Emily Dickinson.
Take your pick.
Th
PETER WILD
THE BUFFALO
I have opened my eyes a thousand times
to the sound of falling snow, like a puppy born
to light, and seen the buffalo falling, a rainbow in cascade over the cartilaginous brow
of a cloud moving across the land
and my ears opened,
new wax
to the pleasant music of their
floating down, stiff-legged
howling, their lips gold and then up again through the earth
and charging through a mountain
when you go to the spot and press the ground, dampness and grass,
there is nothing there except what you can
imagine before
your receding toes, your breath makes no sound.
and a party comes
dancing with
its lamps and furniture, under tables,
out, speaking in a language
that you understand before you know, the girls'
white flesh soft as codfish
as they take your arm becomes your own.
still after they have gone, constantly
changing clothes, you see them on the horizon
and they have grown to millions singing intheir new robes, still you are in your shoes
and under your tongue something melting like a coin.
you go back to find the wet seam
of the wound, your heart grows big as your feet go cold, and stooped there,
pierced with arrows, they swirl back
moving their lips in and out, wearing horns,
reaching for the sunset that snakes and twists
in your bowels.
THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW/FALL 1972 45
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