Hometown Hero: An Epic Verse Novel (Saga No. 2)

By Simon Pole

What if fallen angels got a second chance?

In The Saga of Terminal City they do, freed from prison to walk the earth, doing good -- if they can.

Hometown Hero (No. 2) finds the smalltown of Crummburg marked for destruction by resentful native sons. Can vacationing ex-angel Robert Hunger stop the evil, and save the innocent, before the clock strikes doom?

29 Chapters, 2400 lines of poetry, all written in modern epic verse.

Synopsis

Even angels must take a holiday.
To Crummburg, incestuous little town,
goes Robert Hunger, its veins depleted
of founding gold; now reduced to begging
worldly star, Walter Wisdom, to perform,
native son who nurses simmering grudge.
Simmers also subterranean strain
of evil, logs laid down long time ago.
There crashes too mysterious vessel
of another world, unknown rendezvous
to keep from murder-dealing hill-top camp.
In town below, the players assume parts:
Dr. Daphne Sporg, experimenter
in surgery. Ernie Doomstamp, the creep,
and unlikely idol of film, worldwide.
Staunch alliance of stout mechanics there is,
whose beloved pet, Trilby Stash, must contend
with admirers of demonic intent.
Even the heavenly host, looking down,
may intervene in final judgement sprung.
Will latent evil and death's dormant deeds
condemn the whole, or, will some righteous few
remain to broadcast warnings to the world?

Bio

His mind corrupted by childhood exposure to horror movie matinees, but equally enthralled by the atmosphere of old churches, Simon Pole writes cosmic poetry from the location of Vancouver, British Columbia. A graduate of Harvard University, Simon has continued his studies of what is hidden in the dark. Writing is also in his blood, being the great-great-grandson of early Canadian poet Susie Drury.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon Pole
• Release date: Jun 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476062617

Simon Pole

His mind corrupted by childhood exposure to horror movie matinees, but equally enthralled by the atmosphere of old churches, Simon Pole writes cosmic poetry from the location of Kingsville, Ontario. A graduate of Harvard University, Simon has continued his studies of what is hidden in the dark. Writing is also in his blood, being the great-great-grandson of early Canadian poet Susie Drury.

Book preview

Hometown Hero

an epic verse novel

Simon Pole

The Saga of Terminal City

No. 2

Smashwords Edition

www.simonpole.ca

Copyright © 2012 Simon Pole

All Rights Reserved

No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Simon Pole.

Original Cover Photo by Bob Jagendorf

Used Under License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

About the Author

Chapter 1

A silver bus shot through pin-dropping pines

on a mountain slope, whose broken roots fell

into the tossing water of a stream

along which the hiway wound. To the north,

they travelled, a busload full of loggers,

and women on return from shopping trips,

some students too. A ways apart there sat

a man, with book open he did not read.

Others cast him covert glances, and thought,

Here is one we do not know. Who is it?

A sister, among her friends, purse open,

rummages and finds a scored clipping

of some award bestowed on flag-draped stage.

You are he, she says, "who songs I admire,

and sing, when dishes pile high in the sink,

or, in moments intimate with my Doug,

as we rumpy-pump on the morning bed.

Come now, let us hear those national hits,

so often disclosed on pop radio."

Yes, it was he, Walter Wisdom, the man

who sat apart. Walter Wisdom, who was,

since two thousand and two, the creator

of twelve top twenty hits, and then also

juggernaut concert draw in festivals

worldwide. Walter Wisdom, who had, top side,

identifiable shock of white hair,

and, below, penchant for red satin shorts

under his pants. Walter Wisdom sets by

his book (‘Screw Your Enemies’—erudite),

adjusts his thin, bespeckled tie, and then,

adjusts his face. What do you want of me?

he asks in voice flat as death’s comeuppance.

Some loggers sitting seats ahead, look back,

attracted by the note of sly menace,

but, seeing only a slight geek, play cards

and drink, as woman extends shaking hand

with pen for autograph she soon regrets.

At the tunnel-mouth, where hiway enters

a long curve underneath the mountain’s stride,

a scream, a struggle, the sound of suckers

popping off flesh, scurrying of massed legs,

ropey legs, across the ceiling and out,

and when the lights flare up again, there is

the music fan in discarded heap, bleeding

from the hand, where pen is jabbed through her palm,

and though the puckered face turns down, we see

circular scars, like kisses or craters

on the moon. The hatch above is open,

in daylight streams, along with the wind-whip

of movement. Nowhere is Walter Wisdom.

Struck sober, burly loggers come, take charge;

instruct spook-eyed driver, straight to route’s end

you go, an ambulance to find us there.

An occasional vacation even

an ex-angel allows himself, and though

it is a humble heap of chrome he drives,

and from a spartan apartment he comes,

it is as every citizen he lives,

and, the wealth of fern and forest that lies

outside city bounds is his, as it is

for anyone of residence. The car

he pilots onto the tunnel, ‘round a bend,

he, Robert Hunger, stifling swollen yawn,

a finger fidgeting with the tuner,

and radio sound. A mere blink and then

unexpected descent of total dark:

in the tunnel no cones flank as lit guides,

reflect not overhead. Lucid minute,

as hand toggles headlight, and eyes drink in,

pinioned there, squatting, rearing, squealing loud,

a beast of indeterminate design.

It leaps, many legs strike as one the hood

of Robert’s car. He swerves; against the glass

long tentacles instead of tongues slash licks

imprint. Maddened man eyes look into his,

then gone—into the firm wall he crashes.

Chapter 2

In Crummburg in times of old, when, from springs

on high the gold flowed in knuckle nuggets,

and was from deep pits delved, and there grew up

on the wasteland, and on strips between claims

a seething trim of shacks and shanties

—we had then no sense of us. These lone men

with their buckets and trowels, great teams of mules,

a sluice, a pan, a vial of mercury,

and in the evening a tavern in which

to trade these extracted flecks for whiskey

and trip up to slender, divided rooms

for companionship doled out by clock tick,

occasionally threw up a goldfield newsrag

printing pat poems, petitions of redress,

but no permanence of community

there was until women came in number,

and with ebbing gold, the wild brawlers left,

and stable men only stayed put. I know,

I was one of them. On