The Poetry Marathon

NIGHT. INT. TV on movie that could be from ’80s. Think Golden Girls-Meets-Night Stalker.

“Don’t let me take your time –
it’s been a wild news night –
oh, you’re just getting in?
Well, I could fill you in – ”

CLOSE-UP. Face of Space Expert whose arm is bit at crucial moment of space escape.
“Someone turn off that damn movie!
We’ve got a real emergency.
Two valves to our air supply are tangled.”

“Hm, hated Air Supply. How ’bout a band I could dance to,”
comments the smart-mouthed girl Space Expert with unnecessarily red lips, whose brains are later shared by the Undead.

“Ok, knock it off. Bailor says we need to fix something, we need to fix it.”

This deep voice, OFF-SCREEN, is Captain Space Hunk who, we eventually learn, has the hunk DNA that makes him immune to the zombie virus.

Smart-mouthed girl Space Expert shrugs and goes to door to doorway.
Turning to deliver a one-liner, she nearly walks into our Doctor Space Heroine, who has a forehead smoother than a newborn baby.

“It’s ok,” says Doctor Space Heroine. “The guys know what you meant to untangle.
Smart-mouthed Girl Space Expert goes off in a snit, while Doctor Space Heroine absorbs the good-natured smoldering
of Captain Space Hunk, who stands to broadcast to the audience that he is actually taller (lift) than his super-tall costar —–

The screenwriter took another sip of his now cold coffee and grimaced.
There was no way he could give his producer a regurgitation of 2001: A Space Odyssey‘s Hal 9000 entering this scenario.

Then, there was a power surge. He looked down at his computer to see the blue screen of death.

“Damnit! Space zombies! Why not Jane Austen in space?”

Hey , that wasn’t bad. Jot that down. Maybe I can pitch it to Warner. (more…)

Peckinpah hummed to something on the radio –
“Name me somebody who’s not a parasite
and I’ll go out and say a prayer for him.”

Realizing his guest might not be a Dylan fan,
Sam turned the radio off, and looked for his tea cozy.
the one no one who knew him suspected he owned.

As he looked, other items in the small trailer –
he was on-set – got thrown or kicked to a hiding place.
Except for the magazine with his expected guest on the cover.

The Midwest, what could he ask about its influence?
It wasn’t the West, the real West, the open plain
where men, not committees, determined the future.

Just as he began to second-guess his invitation,
he heard a car nearing his temporary abode.
Passing the bathroom, he caught his face in the mirror

And grimaced at his nerves, and his sloppy napkin folds.
A car door shut, footsteps, then a knock -solid and manly –
that Sam answered. “Well, hello, Mr. Benton, glad you found us.”

The first boyfriend I lived with
had a CD single
of “Love Will Tear Us Apart Again.”

For two years, he and I had a pattern.

He wrote at his computer, a bag of grapes nearby.
I came home and made our dinner salads,
and, later, wrote through the night.

We never talked about marriage.
We talked about names we would give to children
we never had.

The other day,
I saw a picture he posted of his son,
named for Dashiell Hammett.

My new boyfriend and I agreed on no kids.
He’s a Journey fan.

I love him despite this.

Big parking lots make me feel so lonely.

So far from the street, so far from the sidewalk,
so far from the bus stop.

Tethered to nothing but the errand,
I walk to my destination,
certain of the possibility of being apprehended
for breaking an unknown law.

Quaint 1950s America wouldn’t make me
walk the expanse of a football field
to buy milk, bread and razors.

I remember the walks
from my grandmother’s house
to the Safeway.

Armed with my grandmother’s
shakily written list, with prices in the margin,
I soldiered down the street
and through a lot
behind a bar
called the Pyle In.

On one trip,
I walked half a block before I encountered
a man lying on the sidewalk in my path.
He stirred.

“Are you ok,” I asked.

Rubbing his eyes, he said, “What’s ok?”

We both knew here was nothing else to say.
I continued to the store,
saying nothing to my grandmother
when I returned.

To this day, I can think of a dozen responses
in answer to a child’s “Are you ok?”

But, the parking lots are so big,
why would there ever be a need?

Z (scratching his ass)
I saw you the other night. U up?

L (lotioning her elbows)
Yes.

Z
U up?

L
Did I not make that clear?

Z
LOL. U still mad?

L
Why would I be?

Z
idk. Things got crazy that night.

L
Yeah. You drugged me and convinced me you were a swan. Crazy.

Z
I can tell u r mad.

L
I’m tired.

Z
I get it. In the mood for company?

L
What do you think?

Z
Should I call instead?

L
Are you serious!?

Z
Sure.

L
Sure.

Z
Really?

L
No!

Z
Then what – Im consfused

L
You are a con and you are confused. Congrats.

Z
Hey!

L
Good night. And lose my number.

Z
sure. Whatever.

It’s evening
and, finally, I’ve got my market tomatoes and holy basil.

More adults than children crowded the lines, but, in my raincoat,
I’m impervious.
With no rancor, I manage to elbow through the throngs.

I’ve funds enough for what I need
and almost feel I’ve been peculating
when I look inside my bag.

Overhead, the rain of frogs
and lizards begins just as I
catch one of the streetcars,

that are like jars of cool air
from the steam of the sidewalks.
Waiting, still, are more shoppers

for whom the city is a mystery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfbzUof-h64

Oh, we were bad boys.

Look! Above us!

George Spiggot’s waving from Olympia Spas, oblivious
to Peter’s glowering, and the waves of heat
unintentionally roast nestlings, fry bugs on the sidewalks
before
budding psychopaths with mirrors can do same
for faint betties.

What would you give?
asks the advert,
for an afternoon with your favorite pop star
under the heating planet?

My ice tinkles, then melts
just as
oxen form a line.

Rain,

rain,

Centipede
Rain,
rain,
Centipede

Rain,
rain,
Centipede

Tell

me
how
you
get
home

Ten things that ate our time
Your lineage is on the line
Don’t tell us you’ve done no crime

Rain,

rain,

Centipede
Rain,
rain,
Centipede

Rain,
rain,
Centipede

Tell

me
how
you
get
home

Don’t say that we’re finally great
Watch as you ravage the middle states
Lemmings, as always, will have their way

Rain,

rain,

Centipede
Rain,
rain,
Centipede

Rain,
rain,
Centipede

Tell

me
how
you
get
home
Your office is undisclosed
Your minions are predisposed
Public opinion sees you have no clothes

Rain,

rain,

Centipede
Rain,
rain,
Centipede

Rain,
rain,
Centipede

Tell

me
how
you
get
home

I forgot myself, won’t you go
We release you, please say you’ll go
Say you lost us, and we’ll miss you so
Centipede, please please go away

I listen
to 10,000 Maniacs songs
in-between hours, and
you were constancy

of crystalline accompaniment
and precise guitar notes –
dominating but the raven-haired dervish
growing to womanhood in your view.

All men with bowties
should have a title bestowed on them.
All men with bowties and perverse literary leanings
should have a guitar thrown in their hands.

We lived off Prospect.
It was my father’s first house purchase;
he and my mother were young marrieds.

That house seemed gigantic; I was five.

Only through overhearing my mother
tell this do I recall
having my hair dressed
by the neighbors
down the street.

She was looking for me.
Hours earlier, I had gone to play with a friend.
A car came to the front of the house and out I was delivered,
my hair in cornrows.

She told my father, who
moved us to a homogeneous backwater,
where I watched my mother as a touchstone
of how/how not to behave.

If only all of the above could have happened within
the last few years, with Internet, viral video, etc,
I might have
grown up with a mother
who wouldn’t see those braids as a threat.