{"id":711,"date":"2010-01-02T00:10:10","date_gmt":"2010-01-02T05:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/?p=711"},"modified":"2010-01-02T00:10:10","modified_gmt":"2010-01-02T05:10:10","slug":"grant-bergland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/2010\/01\/grant-bergland\/","title":{"rendered":"Grant Bergland"},"content":{"rendered":"

FOR I HAVE PLAYED GUITAR HERO (after Lucia Perillo)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whilst sitting in my overstuffed recliner,
\nWhich is not done in other XBOX countries.
\nA kid across an ocean told me \u201cYou need stand. Always!\u201d
\nI rattled off facts about Led Zepplin, Pink Floyd, and Deep Purple.
\nThough I spoke with authority and cut him off,
\na Singapore third grader beat me and yelled \u201cYou suck!\u201d in perfect English.
\nNow they have long since put their games away
\nand gone to school or bed, I wonder
\nif they remember any more of me than the flood of curse
\nwords flowing from my lips, or how I\u2019d correct their English
\nbetween them yelling \u201cJust hit red button stupid!\u201d
\nand me saying they are too young to be watching \u201cDesperate Housewives\u201d and<\/p>\n

how nobody in America still watches \u201cFamily Matters\u201d or \u201cFull House.\u201d
\nI held their love of Erkel against them, refused to talk about the Olsen twins.
\nBut how I envied how they sliced with the chainsaw in Gears of War,
\ntheir aim with the Barret .50 cal sniper rifle in Call of Duty 4,
\nrecoiling them back to stunned confusion when I tell them I\u2019m twice their age.
\nThen a kid from Micronesia yells \u201cThen, you really suck!\u201d while I die again.<\/p>\n

I had to say, \u201cI\u2019ve got a job and I can\u2019t play as much as you,\u201d
\nI was such an idiot I even tried to apologize
\nfor playing so badly, their replies held back as my character was
\ndismembered, disemboweled, burned, shot, stabbed, or beaten.
\nWatching the red neon blood splatter inside my television
\nforming into the words \u201cYOU LOSE,\u201d at last I understood<\/p>\n

That I understood not one thing about their world, and
\nnever would.\u00a0\u00a0Near the end of my XBOX LIVE membership
\nI lost so much
\nthey stopped playing with me.
\nThey probably
\npictured me sitting on a curb
\nwearing a too tight,
\nstained white t-shirt
\nstretched over a Cheetos gut
\nwith my orange flecked,
\ngap-toothed mouth
\nopen in permanent surprise.<\/p>\n

But, I turned out to be normal among them, just another American
\ngetting beaten at their own games, tolerated and humored
\nuntil replaced by someone who could play the little plastic guitar with
\nprecise, frenzied fingers between trig homework and \u201cWho\u2019s the Boss?\u201d
\nThen one day I played against a high school kid in Wyoming
\nI shredded him with my guitar, the hayseed said he was high so it didn\u2019t count,
\nBut still I yelled \u201cYou Suck!\u201d in perfect English.<\/p>\n

Grant Bergland has a B.A. in English from Arizona State University and teaches film in San Francisco. He is a graduate student at Cal State East Bay, where he was awarded the 2009 Associated Students Scholarship and won second prize in the 2009 Donald Markos poetry contest. More info at\u00a0www.grantbergland.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FOR I HAVE PLAYED GUITAR HERO (after Lucia Perillo) Whilst sitting in my overstuffed recliner, Which is not done in other XBOX countries. A kid across an ocean told me \u201cYou need stand. Always!\u201d I rattled off facts about Led Zepplin, Pink Floyd, and Deep Purple. Though I spoke with authority and cut him off, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-january-2010"],"yoast_head":"\nGrant Bergland - Full Of Crow: Poetry (Archives)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/2010\/01\/grant-bergland\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Grant Bergland - Full Of Crow: Poetry (Archives)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"FOR I HAVE PLAYED GUITAR HERO (after Lucia Perillo) Whilst sitting in my overstuffed recliner, Which is not done in other XBOX countries. A kid across an ocean told me \u201cYou need stand. Always!\u201d I rattled off facts about Led Zepplin, Pink Floyd, and Deep Purple. 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