Todd Swift

Todd Swift

The Death of Charles Bronson

Like a hand grenade, with the pin pulled out: John Huston describing “Le sacré monstre” As the French called Charles Bronson; but They might as well have been talking about Poetry, itself a hand-held weapon capable Of massive outward impact as it splinters Sending metal and other fragments everywhere; And is not poetry, in France, a sacred monster? Charles, you had the same name as Baudelaire, And a similar face: were you his disinherited Country brother?  You too had spleen, derived From years as a child miner, earning one dollar Per ton of coal.  Later your performances mined Darkness for more money, fist-fulls, which bought 33-room mansions.  Your last name was altered Thanks to Senator McCarthy: you suspected America might not be ready for a Buchinksy Holding the machine gun of Machine Gun Kelly. Death Wish, of course: every man half hopes To have his wife murdered, daughter defiled, So he can explode into action, ugly-handsome And driven, like your brutal 70s character. I prefer Mr. Majestyk – especially the scene When the villains shoot up your water melon Warehouse.  You had the scarred visage of The sort of existential immigrant men love To imagine they might amble off a boat to be. Women imagined your violent torso tensing Above or below their taboo-behaved selves. Then in Alistair MacLean’s Breakheart Pass You may’ve surpassed yourself, cheroot-smoking In that Colorado blizzard.  Today, in hot Paris, I Asked a waiter about your last escape: he shrugged, Said it was not like when Camus crashed, ecoute. He is wrong.  You inspired the brutal in all of us To dress up to walk the streets with one purpose.