The Wasteland Revisited
“The wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the desert and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise.” Isaiah 43:20-21
 
1.    THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD GARBAGE
 
April Fool's is the deadliest day of the year, calling every Tom, Dick or Harry jester out of the woodwork. Like breeding termites they intermarry terror with remembrances of jokes past. Winter kept the autumn garbage from stinking up the neighborhood. Summer surprised us, the heat coming before spring this year.
 
After the garbage decomposed all the way we stopped wearing swimmer's nose-clips and took a picnic through the pocket-door gazebo on the Sound, drank sun tea distilled from salt water spilled over filtered ice cubes and talked about sitcoms.
 
I was a child once, Swiss, German and Irish. Being the oldest I always had to take out the trash, except when visiting cousins in the Midwest. Sometimes I remembered missing the first few minutes of “The Honeymooners” because some wounded refuse bag began to crawl through the house: starting near the kitchen door, and dragging itself across the battlefield screaming for a corpsman.
 
Spring or summer in the Cornbelt you sneeze a lot. The stalks are tall, shedding pollen, all nature ready for one big blue, harvest moon. But most of farming is excess, leavings tilled under long fields; a wayside mowed once or twice a year. What of the crop that is spirit? What new religions grow from the stony wayside? Paradise fallen on hard times boiling 10-cent bags of noodles for nourishment.
 
I dream of Jeannie’s body, soul and spirit: balanced before the Fall, before the Son took the garbage of life upon himself. Christmas shops cannot merchandize you. It doesn’t play in Poughkeepsie. No, sir. Hell is a very small place to fall out of. No earthen garbage pit could hold you to the grave.
 
Poet's air their dead garbage in public in the hope it will somehow live forever. For poets hopelessness is the enemy; that and dirty old men, porn queens, and movie stars: the self-imposed, exiled dreamstuff tossed from humanity's doorsteps onto the garbage heaps of formulaic vision. Their fear of dusty, religious germs kicks at every passing wind through pulp gossip fiction recycled on afternoon talk shows during the water cooler rush of the business day.
 
                                                                                                                                                                                                          I could not mush
​                                                                                                                                                                                             her perfumed breasts
at our power lunch late last year. I carried her fragranced heart for over a year before she transferred to Casting.
 
Horrible Hagar's personal clairvoyant grossed out his relatives. A crystal ball replaced the tarot cards. His wife viewed her kin as Arian white trash, like a pack of wild dogs roaming the pages of the Sunday comic strip on Presidential search and destroy missions.
 
Witches eat belladonna like steroids I suppose. No personality cards for insider trading. The Dork, the man who's never invited to parties. The Nerd, who sells blood to the Red Cross to pay for surgical tape to fix glasses, or to buy fresh pencils and calculator batteries. There are the Idols, male and female singers who travel the world with a price on their heads, though few ever meet them in person or know if they are any more real than the sacred HD pixels they inhabit. Finally, the deathbed Psychologist takes priestly confessions at the worst possible moment. Fear eternal death in a Lake of Fire.
 
Universal City: so many actors and actresses have passed under your doors, rising and falling under a jet stream of publicity born from hands shaken in singing, gurgling Jacuzzis. Why doesn’t anyone pick his or her nose on primetime? The networks give the public what it wants. I suppose to keep right brains holding in Slo-Mo.
 
"You were with me at the Oscars?”
"That dud you planted in the schedule last year…has it begun to sprout?”
"Do cows have magic wings?”
 
Millionaire Bruce Wayne became a sleaze king after syndication. Batman's ward, the Boy Wonder, died of AIDS, not into Bruce, Vicki or the sell-through.
 
2. A GAME OF CHESTS AND BULGES
 
The tube chair she sat in, like a polished throne glowing beside the marble entertainment center. A dead screen comes to life at the touch of a designer button on the matching ivory control box. The HDTV with DAT premiered without litigation. Casting was impeccable. Her golden hair and Carolina Blue eyes had nothing to do with the story at hand. They tasted each other's attributes. Predictably, interruptions followed one after another for several minutes. After their moment passed, lost for all eternity, I turned to the HDTV Repair Shopping Channel to get fresh quotes.
 
Every window was alive in the mall. Plate glass everywhere breathed in unison with my own rising and falling chest hair. Into my own house I carted many exotic items shipped in from around the world for precisely this moment in time.
 
"You have learned the plastic well, young Luke," the invisible teacher whispered to his young Jedi dressed as a metallic-suited knight on October 31st.
"Is this a fraternity prank?" the cleavaged Clerk bounced out impatiently.
"I believe in the Force, God, the Creator or whatever individual preference gives you at least one unique trait so as to keep him, her and everyone from mixing everything up,” the virile Jedi offered. (Words spoken by a Jedi always hang over a crowd an extra few seconds.)
She accepted the purchase card and pressed routine keys with wide red, celluloid and pouting lips, for the fortieth time that day. The Jedi entertained the thought he was becoming predicable in some manner, a regular customer, a statistic in some business database or hacker’s memory bank. The Jedi had just spent thousands on therapy to assure humanity his minimum one, individual trait was still intact.
"The world is a mixed up enough place as it is,” his beautiful, Princess Lea look-alike Bride countered.
"You are my sister and my friend; straight from sex-ed class," the Jedi focused on her eyes.
"Can't wait for an irresponsible sex-addict to keep life interesting."
"Love is a relative, beautiful thing."
The Clerk slid the Jedi's purchase into a seemingly bottomless bag along with a dozen or so, freshly inked receipts and advertising brochures. She slowly looked up and down the Jedi's rippled body while his newlywed wife stood stoically, a true Jedi housewife. “Goodbye” was all a bosomed Clerk would ever tell her girlfriends about those last, fleeing moments.
 
"Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.”
"What are you thinking of?“
"What thinking? Who thinks around here?”
"What? I never know what you are thinking. Think.”
"Therefore, I am.”
“Am not.”
“Are too!”
“R too, D2.”

                                                                                                                                                                      I think we are in
                                                                                                                                                        a run-down cemetery
where the dead men scavenge body parts from corpses untouched by heavy metal music.
 
"What is that noise down the hall?"
"Probably groupies."
"This is supposed to be a select, four-star hotel."
"The wind…”
"Exactly. "You mean nothing?"
"Exactly. "Exactly what I mean."
"Nothing?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing."
 
                                                                                                          I remember the
                                                                                              bags under her eyes.
 
"Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?"
“O O O O that Shakespearean Rag—It's so elegant.”
"My mind is a mass of confusion."
“So intelligent.”
"Oh that every marriage were made in heaven and moved as smoothly as Romeo and Juliet’s less, of course, the two death numbers at the end."
"Of course. None pledge eternal love together, before the evening news ends anymore.”
“Nothing pledged, nothing gained or dusted I always say.”
 
"What shall I do now? What shall I do? Shall I rush out as I am, and walk the street and let all my hair down so, or should I be what everyone wants me to be?”
“The glossies, the TV ads, the newspapers. The hot shower at ten. The 11 o'clock News, 10 Central Time.”
“And if it rains, maybe I'll believe some weather reporter’s stories, others I won’t.”
“And shall we play another game of monopoly, pressing greedy eyes together and waiting for a ship to come in?”
“When Lil's first husband got divorced for the fourth time, I said--I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself…”
“HURRY UP ITS TIME TO GO TO THE BANK.”
“Now Albert's being paroled and going to remarry the live-in roommate he spent the last six months with in the co-ed halfway house, after he got out the first time, and made himself a bit smarter with refresher courses.”
“He'll want to know what you done with that money he gave you to get yourself educated.”
“I did. He was there. Four years at a major university, Lil.”
“And such a nice degree.”
“He said,” I swear, “I can't, I can't bear to talk to you.”
“And no more can I,” I said,
“And think of poor Albert, he's been at MIT four years now, he wants a good job.”
“And if you don't give it to him, there's other's that will,” I said.
“Now there,” she said.
“Something about the Fortune 500 firms that might appeal to him,” I said.
“Then I'll know who to go on about,” she said
“And give me a nasty look will ya…”
“HURRY UP ITS TIME TO GO SHOPPING.”
“If you don't like shopping with me you can go wait in the atrium, or the vestibule if you prefer.”
“Others can pick and choose if you can't marry the man,” I said.
“But if Albert elopes, it won't be for lack of a best man.”
“You ought to be ashamed,” I said, “to talk so.” (And him only thirty-something.)
“I can't help it,” she said, pulling on a Maidenform.
“It's them books she reads from the publishers,” I said. (She's read five already, and nearly died of the last one when she listened to heavy metal records played backwards.)
“The feminist shrink said it would be alright, but I was never the same.”
“You are the proper fool,” I said.
“Well, if Albert won't leave you alone, there it is,” she said.
“What did you get married for, if you don't want children?”
“HURRY UP ITS TIME TO DO MORE SHOPPING. SHOPPING.”
“LADIES.”
“Well, that Sunday while we were there, Lil had a hot one.”  
“And they asked me to leave them alone of course, to get about while their song was still playing.“
“HURRY UP ITS TIME.”
“HURRY UP ITS TIME.”
“All the stores will close in a little while.”
“Good night Bill. Goodnight Lou.”
“Goodnight Ellie May. Good night.”
“Ta ta.“
“Good night. Good night.”
“Sweet dreams. Good night.”
“Good night shoppers. Good night. Good night sweet shoppers. Good night.”
 
3.     THE HIRED DEMONS
 
The river's course is broken: the last bulldozer clutches the ground and sinks into the wet bank of dirt. The wind crosses a brown land, unheard over the roar of many grinding diesels. The nymphs have started across the walk in front of the construction site. The men whistle to their sweet things ever so softly, 'til the contract ends. This water on-site shares empty Styrofoam, floated bottles, crumpled papers, worn rubber tires, foaming wastes, cigarettes or other testimony of Satan's fall. The nymphs are crowded at the bars. And their friends: the loitering heirs of city heat having left no phone numbers. By the waters of the sea I sat down and wept…
 
Fortune 500 poets travel so little through my house. Why am I so ugly to them, these sweet souls that run so softly along the roads they drive at night?
 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Am I so arrogant
                                                                                                                                                                                                                like a black bird picking
a corpse scattered across the road, chased away by every car, waiting as long as possible to be carried off by its wings?
 
Write indoors in winter, exteriors in spring and summer and let autumn take its course. These are Poetry's first rules of success, or is that excess? I think to not write them down anymore but instead, remember the changes in this day. I envision myself king of Fortune 500 poetics, lord of every yuppie lover's heart. Yet, I am negative and critical with multi-national implications; arrogant sometimes and mostly withdrawn. Still, I remember the most positive emotions within myself and see all negative ones as chains yanked by spirits hiding in the shadows of the night.
 
O the moon shone bright on the nymphs and on her daughters the Players that move too quickly on to the next poet. They wash their feet in rent-a-Jacuzzis, another idea past its prime. They wash their face in bubble gum.
 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Unreal,  wasted                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  land visited for
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               the last 
time under a spiritual fog and a lusty, winter moon. The land once flowed with milk and honey. How to reconcile perfect choices?
 
Unshaven Einstein, with a pocket full of candy formulas shook the balance and opened up the military/industrial complex. A lush green haven of mind, body and spirit turned intellect, turned away for answers. He who would not swallow a Quantum pill.
 
                                                                                                        Now, once and
for all, there is perfect hopelessness for one and all.
 
Lack of perfection leads intellect to justify imperfection at every picnic table by the roadway of life.
 
Turn upward from your tower where impressionable minds like fine-tuned racing machines, wait. I middle-aged though bored, exist between eleven universes with a life busier than most, to sit behind a desk writing. And still, those eleven universes may have eleven dimensions. And so on it goes until I am an ascended particle master of all I survey.
 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           I am with steroid
                                                                                                                                                                                                                             breasts larger
than most skinny women’s. I see past the happy hour. The evening hour promises bribes for those homeward angels bound over in flights of rush-hour fancy, and all that gives bartenders an extra hour's wage.
 
The gypsy sports hero, home during the off-season, lights the one bulb lamp above his bank statements. He lays out the product endorsements, the many contracts a sportsman is expected to hustle after a day’s game. Anyone seeing the numbers would envy this ability to draw crowds.
 
I, a middle-aged old man with wrinkled toes from standing in the river of dreams too long, no longer living in the wasteland, perceived the scene and was still able to explain it. The muses still twist one arm behind my back and tie strings around all my fingers so I won't forget. (I expect no guests in a desert void of imagination, housing war castles of sand or mud.)
 
He, a young guitar repairman, arrived. A small businesswoman with one bold stare, one of the new neuveau, me-too so rich on whom name-dropping sits easily as a tenth-time hostess for the local fundraiser; the time now advantageous for foreplay, he guessed.
 
The microwave meal is ended. She is bored and tired, sitting cross-legged on the couch picking her teeth. He endeavors to engage her in a caress that is unreproved, unrequited. He assaults at once. Callused fingertips encounter no defense. His vanity requires no response, and welcomes the hairy rankness of her indifferent, stale underarms and cigarette breath. (And I, a middle-aged old man, have been here before and left soon after. I, who have sat second row below Pink Floyd's wall of speakers, and walked among the lowest of the undereducated dead and lived to tell about it.)
 
And bestows one final, patronizing kiss on the MC's upper lip, asking himself what this woman does for him. She stares a moment into an aluminum pan reflection, hardly aware of her departed heavy metal salesman. Her one remaining brain cell allows this thought to form: "He ain't no Valentino or rock music superstar." She thinks of needs and caring, paces the room alone, and never speaks of love.
 
The lovers glow with oil and ventilate, heating the beaches blushing with a turning tide of desire for a wild ride, a pure kiss on the lips where it counts, straight up and true, pure, once more from the heart.
 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Once more
                                                                                                                                                                                                                          before I die.
 
Elizabeth and Leicester bring out the worst in each other then rub the wrong way. She compares him to swollen flames and expects expectations--more true friends and family voices to flap at.
 
E&L play their games of chance and inspiration laughing, or trying patience laughing all the time interwoven with love's most blissful spotlights; mostly doubting, still hoping perfection is like beautiful Cinderella and her fresh, Bel Air prince--too close for friendship, too unyielding to be soul mates; and both with lovers, and other internal scars only their egos see. They touch the wounds, and then rub their eyes. Both desire change and never find time, time to talk the talk, thinking they've wasted or lost the years walking a walk.
 
4. DEATH BY INTELLECT
 
“Why does the public wait until after the death of an artist or writer until he or she is discovered?”
“It has to do with the critics.”
“They safely pick bones and theorize, and then without fear of authoritative correction or contradiction.”
                                                                                                                                                Ah, the life of a critic. A critic's life,
gentile or Jew is one of air and expectations, except for the few exceptions. Only a university will take them in off the street and feed them.
 
5.    WHAT THE SHRINK DIDN'T SAY
 
"Eat your peas,” they both screamed at me.
"Interesting,” he replied unemotionally.
“What's it mean though?” The patient sat up on the couch alert, in expectation of this, his final session.
“Very interesting your family life.”
“What does it mean, Doc?”
“Your family was conservative was it not?”
“Yes, but what does it mean?”
“As a little boy this happened, yes?”
“Yes, yes. We've gone over that in detail.”
“They always threatened to FedEx your dinner to all the starving children in China or Africa?”
“Yes, their words exactly.”
“Interesting. I've never come across a case like this in all my many years of psychiatry.”
“Ahhh. This is crazy. What is it?”
“Ah. Where's the time gone?”
“You're kidding?”
“Another day, another insight: that's my motto. Session's over.”
“You're a fake.”
“I would never tell anyone that, if I were you.”
“I'm on the edge of a cure and you stretch it out one more session. You're crazy.”
“Exactly my diagnosis. You're cured.”
 
If nature were therapy and not rock? If there were rocks to stand on; and waterfalls; and water to catch us when we fall; a spring, a pool among the rocks to stand on and rinse off? If there were the sound of water only in this life? (Not the centipedes in the dry grass endlessly walking somewhere, walking; but the sound of water over a rock where the parrots mock from alloyed cages, "Polly is a Quaker…Polly is a Quaker.") But Mother Nature has no miracle cure.
 
Who is the third person of the trinity always beside you? When I count, there are only you and I together but when I look up Abbey Road there is always one walking beside you. I do not know whether a man or angel from our many conversations together. Quickly, who is that in the middle of the road, no on the other, other side trying to turn us just as we reach a crossroads?
 
What is that sound on Mother's Day? Murmur of maternal lamentation, the same hooded hordes of bomb threats swarming together over endless, useless pay phone wires, stumbling in temporal, earthen houses meditating on the missed card or Mother's Day gift.
Falling eardrums.
Jerusalem. Athens. Alexandria.
Nine out of ten therapists agree: "Don't repress feelings for your mother."
 
Batgirl drew her long, black hair tight and fiddled popular music for the MTV video. Bats with baby faces in the caving light whistled, and beat their wings and made their way to the corporate offices. All bats out of hell are sent by former songsters when play rotation of their tune is questionable, money runs out, or songs peak too soon, when a thousand voices imprisoned in empty cassettes and exhausted vinyl sleeves sit in warehouses waiting for discount auctioneers.
 
In this decayed denomination among the sidewalks in the moonlight, the choir is singing over the open graves about the chapel and the empty pews. The sinner's are all gone. There are no stained glass windows, and the door swings on its hinges. Dry bones collected. In a flash of enlightenment the last member of the congregation falls asleep.
 
Ghandi's coffin was unearthed. Limp leaves were covered by dirt from the sunken-eyed diggers’ shovels. Over distant chanting faces whispering crouched, breathing heavily, expecting silent nirvana.
Then spoke the thunder--
DUH
TA DA.
 
                                                                                                     What have we forsaken?
 
Blood surrenders to spirit. The awful daring of a shaking heart in an age of impropriety, depressed by this, and this only, we have judged existence not found in obituaries yet to be written or under seven seals broken by the angels in their empty, little heads.
DA
DUH
TA DA.
I have heard the fighting between camps. Freud vs. Jung. Jung vs. Spock. Spock vs. the Clignons. Timothy vs. the dead Leary, and so on. By the way, he knocked at my window one night, soon after croaking, him being chased I think, by every spirits he seduced for eternity.
 
                                                                                                   Turn the key once and turn once only.
 
One ping only before we defect to the other side, to capitalism, where democracy campaigns with the food that would feed the motherland all winter. We think of the key, each in his or her prison, turning the key.
 
                                                                                                  He came to set the prisoners at liberty.
 
Turn
DA
key Spock.
DUH
TA DA.
Only at nightfall, rumors spread.
 
                                                                                                  Relive for a moment a heart broken for
eternity.
 
TA DA.
TA DUH!
 
People just off the boat responded to the census. To the experts the sea was wet behind the ears and responses completely predicable, well within statistical probability, and if invited to the lottery, to obediently follow Big Brother’s controlling hands.
                                                                                                                                                                        I sat upon the throne looking down with a view through the clouds below me. With arid desert plains below I lean on higher ways not my own.
 
All the shrinks falling down, falling down, falling down; all the shrinks come falling down, my fair lady.
 
Like London Bridge in Texas, these fragments are stored in short-term memory, maybe for eternity.
 
                                                                                                   I've left for the last time.




Bio: PM Flynn is a North Carolina writer. He holds a B.S. in English from East Carolina University. His writing interests extend to poetry, fiction novels and screenplays. He owns a coffee house with his wife, which features live music most Friday nights. He has self-published a book on Creativity and Reason: THE CREATIVELY DRIVEN LIFE; and co-wrote and self-published ASSASSINATIONS: THE WORLD’S CLANDESTINE KILLER ELITE with Bob Chapman. Patrick has been published in many print and online literary magazines including Helen Literary Magazine, the Fictional Café, The Grassroots Women’s Project, The Mirror/Slush, etc.

              Zombie Cowboy and the Girl Who Didn't Know How to Live

• For too long, I was a puppet of the fates.
  How they must have laughed,
  as I twisted and danced,
  helplessly in their macabre play.
  So I tore my strings away,
  took fate in my own hands,
  And I escaped to Arkansas.
• 
  
• I found a ride with a zombie cowboy,
  Who told me jokes about sheep,
  And taught me that I didn't always have to be the grownup.
  That it's ok to get drunk on hippie juice, before noon,
  as you float lazily along, debating politics and life,
  with a zombie cowboy and a man in a cowboy hat with horseshoe glasses.
  Floating in our own little cosmos, we were a cross section of life,
  Different ages, at different stages of our lives.
  Just drifting along in our sheltered cove,
  as we slowly  got  drunk on sunlight, fresh air and the beauty of a day,
  where there was nothing to do but float.
  And  all our myriad of problems,
  some life changing, some minute,
  would cease to exist in our own little aquarium .
  


• I learned so much in those few, short days.
  Floating in the water with a head on a stick,
  I learned the value of friendship.
  I saw that sometimes you have to climb up a high cliff and jump into the water,
  just because it's in front of you. 
  I learned the joy of driving fast and free over the water,
  as long as you don't let fear make you brake too quickly.
  And I learned that, when like Atlas, 
  you have the weight of the whole world on your shoulders, at times it's alright to shrug and just let it fall off.
  You can always pick up the load again later.
• 
  
• The last night, lying on the dock under the starlight,
  being romanced by that zombie cowboy, 
  We talked about love and pain,
  And about how hard it is to come back to life after you have died.
  And how the stars are brighter in Arkansas,
  especially  for a zombie cowboy and for  a girl who never really learned
  how to let loose and live.
  When a shooting star broke free of it's constraints
  and flew above our heads 
  across the luminous night sky,
  We kissed for luck.
  But I already knew my luck had changed, 
  for how many times
  do you get a chance to run away to Arkansas,
  with a zombie cowboy and his friends,
  and learn that your fate is finally and forever, 
  in your own hands.

​

THE BALLAD OF MICKEY TWO SUITS

Mickey wore two suits to pass his happy hours
One day he wore morning grey
Another mourning black
Bathed in frosted dust beamed from
Mock tudor central casting
A long afternoon light thrown
Through stained glass
On to stained cloth
Showing hard won
Marks of distinction
And by 5 o’clock
They burn a little brighter now
-
Mickey went on the road a while
After the shit went down y’know
But the white lines caught
Up with him till he wore them
On his black back like
Magpie feathers
Badged as thief and liar
Blind curves brought
Him back to where
The smoke still hung
Thick enough to hide his
Burning very brightly now
-
Can in hand confident
Mickey counts his days
From grey to black to grey
Songbirds murmuring on his tongue
That thing that they would sing
In the dark back then
When he had painted eyes
And she had painted wings 
They took it way deep
All the way down to the roach
And spat another shot in the fire to make it
Burn a little brighter now
-
Grey to black to grey to black to grey
Two suits Mickey wears away
Measured twice and cut once
One for the wedding
One for the wake
One for the wedding
One for the wake
Mickey bled away
Coughing up her ashes
In polite company, he’s
Burning very brightly now
-
Mickey had to go away
His name was on a list
Of the damaged and the pissed
The one’s whose stories didn’t fit
The rising prices of the drinks
Two suits grey black grey black grey
Black the day he got his wings
Half cut and measured
And desperately wanting
Something only he could see
Heading down the aisle again
To burn a little brighter now

(My debt to Derek W Dick whose words partly inspired these words is acknowledged)





DEAD CAT BOUNCE DOWN THE WHITE LION

The fake plastic dancing girls
Seem to have no knickers
From this perspective
They look a little stiff
As they get their plastic groove on
To Band On The Run while
The TV plays videos of ABBA
Before they invented the genre
Of relationship gothic for the masses
They are synching somehow
Sailor Sam is harmonising with
The drums of Fernando
We are sinking somehow
in a sea of magic eye carpet
Me and the sad man and Sailor Sam
Nameless and me are looking 
Over the edge for an hour in
The afternoon to see how far
The bottom is from Wednesday
He don't care much now but
It's nice to have some company
The fake plastic dancing girls
Have a faraway look in their eye
They can see all the way to the
End of the world and they will
Take it on the chin when it comes
Drafty as it is for them down South
What with being underdressed
And all the rest and they don't care either
They've been expecting it
For a long, long time
If it comes, my word
It's gonna happen here....



​

Bio: The Amy Bassin/Mark Blickley text based art collaboration, Dream Streams, began this past year after they read Man Ray’s memoir, Self-Portrait, and were enthralled by the Dadaist experiments that combined fine art photography with poetic texts..This past summer their collaboration was featured as an art installation at the 5th Annual NYC Poetry Festival on Governors Island and published in Columbia Journal of Literature & Art. Amy is a fine arts photographer/video artist and co-founder of the international artists collective, Urban Dialogues. In 2016 she has exhibited in Bronx and Brooklyn art galleries. Blick’s most recent book is Sacred Misfits (Red Hen Press). His play, Valadon: Reclining Nude, opens this October at NYC’s 13th Street Repertory Theater.  He is a proud member of the Dramatist Guild and PEN American Center.

WAKE UP, THOMAS JEFFERSON, IT’S YOUR TURN TO DRIVE

A cheetah runs alongside me
Trying to catch its breath in the dead of night
Keep up
I say
Keep up

I am fire
Hear me roar
Or something like that

It could just be the drink talking
To be honest

It usually is

 



PUNCTURED LUNGS

I sit by his bedside
Watching him vomit and wretch and moan
The nurse ducks out for a second
She’s got his bloods and has had her fill
Of his curse words and vile gestures
Threats and gropes

A brief silence passes between us
After I’ve wiped spit and crimson from his mouth

Then he sighs
Sits upright
His eyes widen and
He begins to smile

Whoever says they’ll face death boldly
Is a lying, phoney bastard
He says

Face it
He tells me
We’re all going out
The same way we came in

Crying our eyes out
And covered in shit

He coughed again
There wasn’t much more to say
After that

 



I CAN’T LEAVE HER BEHIND

I chew on the ends of my white Ray Bans
Feel the cool breeze ease through my jeans
We steal a moment sponsored by bruises and
cheap whiskey
her skirt billowing by the Bay
God damn, I think
God damn

All we need now is a radio to enshrine this love
A car or the perfect song
but all I have is holes
in my 4 dollar shoes and a woman
Whose nipples are on show to the world

Tourists snap the summer sun
And I watch her twirling in red heels
Her tongue poking through her teeth
In that miraculous way it always does

God must have a sense of humour
I decide

If he didn’t
he would never send me women
like these.

 




SOMETHING ABOUT JOHNNY KNOXVILLE

Something about Johnny Knoxville
Looking old makes me feel
Immeasurably sad
The years pass by like buses
And none of them ever stop
When did I become this person
In these trousers, boots and shirts
How did I get so far from the mountain?

Wasn’t it just yesterday we were morons?
Young and full of love
Where is Texas, Toronto and L.A
Now we really need them?

The good days are like a vault that
Traps my heart when I open it
Nostalgia flies like curses whenever
I look in there
My heart colliding with graveyards
Stuffed with faces softer than they are
Right now

People go up and down elevators
Time spilling out their eyes
Life falling out of the hole in their pockets
Lush green fields of vibrant youth
Roaring forward like majestic bulls

You go over the edge without seeing it

That’s life
They say
That’s life

 




WAYNE GRETZKY, WHERE ARE YOU NOW?

I’m knee deep in mud, mother
Blood pouring from my chest
I don’t recognise these fields or faces
The last things I’ll ever see
I wanna come back home, ma
I wanna come back home

I didn’t see the bullet
That ripped right through my skin
But I can smell the burning, ma
I can smell it

My hands fall into the puddle
People charge and scream and shoot
I forget what it was that brought us here, ma
Does it matter?

How is the old hockey team getting on, pa?
Some wins this year
I hope
Tell coach I was asking after him
If you see him

How is the farm coming, brother?
There’s no need for my medals now
Will you keep them?
If you’re missing my face
Don’t worry
I’ll be on your T.V soon enough

There were sweet things at the blue line
My friend
Great things at the red
Hit somebody, will you
Hit somebody.

Feeling weak now, sister
Feeling weak
Don’t let that job get you down
Keep my records
If you want them
You were always the best of them
You know

It’s getting dark, my darling
It’s getting dark
Don’t let them leave me here
Cold and wet and scarred
Don’t weep for me, my love
Please don’t weep so hard
Know that I went with my friends
Around me
The birds above me
And you
In the same place you always were

Firmly in my heart

 



MANHATTAN BITE

I was living on the corner of
34th and 8th
When you told me your news and
I lost that job and the waitress quit and
My book was rejected and my favourite singer
Died
And it started to rain

I took it as incontrovertible proof
That there are no more miracles
Left in this town



​

Bio: Rob Plath is a 46-year-old poet from New York. He has over a dozen books out. Rob is most known for his monster collection A Bellyful of Anarchy (Epic Rites Press). He lives with his cat and stays out of trouble.  For more about Rob Plath visit his website robplath.com. ​

Dinner with the Hermans and the Roths
 
Zoey had a boyfriend who wrote awful poetry once, so she married him. His name was Nestor and he was a good man, once she got him to quit that poetry thing. Even though Zoey never saw the traits in him she always thought she would have in the man she married, such as above average intelligence, above average strength, bravery, and overall manliness, Nestor attempted at so much, and Zoey could appreciate him attempting. She took his thinning brown hair with a premature bald spot, off-center, in her hands and agreed to marry him.
            Of course, when looking on the outside, it is hard to see who settled for who. The relationship of the Hermans—since they did eventually get married and becomeThe Hermans—is unique since not one of them settled, but two. Nestor Herman was quite happy in his parents' basement, playing video games with his raunchy friends all day or playing tennis in the park, but he was still lonely because he lacked an actual woman. No amount of game nights with friends, movies with friends, or porn and masturbation alone in his room could solve that, so he remembered a pretty, quiet girl he met at community college.
            His friend convinced Nestor to ask her out, but after backing down from self-consciousness, his friend stole his laptop and asked Zoey out via the most intimate way in the modern era—via Facebook. The pretty girl, trying to remember more about this Nestor than his teeny, tiny bald spot and his bunny nose, was too distracted to stop her friend from grabbing her laptop and accepting the date for her.
            So their first date was scheduled. It went okay, with talk about future career goals over Saturday night bowling, so they scheduled a second date, at a movie. A third at Zoey's parents' house, where she stayed while finishing school. This was where Zoey liked to test her men's intelligence by showing them one of her giant art books and first, testing to see if they have any taste in art, and then seeing if they could make an interesting observation about a piece. His lack of interest or thoughts on abstract art was disappointing, but at least he seemed to really like impressionist art. He liked these pieces more than the normal person pulled off the street would, so Zoey thought he was okay. And Nestor thought Zoey was okay because she was a pretty girl with clear goals of becoming a music video director, who was actually willing to fondle his penis while in the back of a movie theatre. The downfalls were that she didn't like video games, hiking, tennis, or some of his friends, but overall she was still a pretty girl who more-or-less treated him nicely. His only regret was that this fondling was during a children's film, but the movie had been out for awhile so there was really no one there. In the end, it became a funny story that they had. One of many somewhat-humorous anecdotes. Neither of them were religious, but they got married in a church, her in a white dress found at a secondhand store and him in a very itchy tuxedo with a tie that he had to keep adjusting. She did not become a music video director, and they both fell into administrative desk jobs.
            After their second miscarriage, Zoey began to think that their genes weren't compatible either.
—We don't have much in common, do we?
—We can name our kid whatever you want. You don't have to like Harry.
—That's not what this is about. We don't have anything in common, do we?
—What are you talking about? We have lots of things in common!
—Like what?
—Like your new last name.
—That doesn't count. A lot of people are named Herman.
—We have some friends in common?
—That sounded like a question?
—Why don't we have someone over for dinner?
—Why don't we?
            So it was decided that Mrs. Nestor Herman would put on her pink, polka dot apron and play housewife. The apron was certainly not brand-new, but it was untouched, and Zoey finally felt a sense of wifely purpose while strapping it on.
—See, I could feed a child.
            The only thing unique about Zoey Herman was how many times she touched her stomach in the day. She had brown hair, not light brown or dark brown, but brown, and she had slight freckling on her arm, but none of the adorable freckles found on some faces. She was about 5'5" with an average weight, and an average shoe size, but she touched her stomach 56 times a day, on average. And her husband touched her stomach 35 times a day, on average. This stayed the same post-pregnancy and pre-pregnancy, because they began to always think of Zoey as being in a state of pre-pregnancy.
—Who did you invite over anyway?
—The Roths.
—The Roths?
—Yes, that friend? You had from college?
—I don't remember a Roth. I remember a Rodriguez. Could this be the Rods?
—No, Roth is her married name. She was that friend who took credit for us getting together.
—Oh, yes, her. I thought she moved to New York.
—And now she is back with a husband. Do you not know about him?
—No, nothing.
            Zoey Herman had resumed setting the table, and when the table was set, she unset it a bit. Rearranged the plates so they were slightly uneven, and then evened them up. Then she counted. One, two, three, four places at the table.
—Wait.
            She counted again. Mistakenly, she had set a fifth place at the table. She was always doing this now, anticipating little Harold or Harrietta Herman.
—Leave it.
—Nes, why would I do that?
—Maybe they have a kid?
—Do you know they have a kid? Did you see him on Facebook?
—Well, no, but remember before Frieda left? She said she would never post about her child on Facebook because it would be invading his right to privacy.
            Still, Zoey decided to un-set the fifth place at the table.
—I'm sure she would've changed her mind once she had a cute baby.
—Okay, Honey.
—Okay, Honey. That's what he says when he doesn't believe me, or doesn't care.
            After shuffling the table around a few more times, the bell rang, and Mrs. Nestor Herman almost forgot to take off her apron.
—Zah-oweeeeeeeeeeeeee!
            This exclamation came from Frieda and her outstretched arms. As Zoey hugged her, she paid special attention to Frieda's stomach, which seemed perfectly flat and sculpted. Then she counted heads. Two. She looked at their knees to make sure there wasn't a third head creeping about. No third head.
—Zah-owee, this is  my husband, Salvador.
—Hello, it's nice to meet you.
—Nice to meet you too.
—He runs his own publishing company in New York.
—Oh, then what are you doing here?
—We are investing in a summer home.
—Ah. Well, please, come in.
            Zoey collected their coats as she called Herman into the foyer.
—Is this your summer home?
—No, just our home-home. Nestor?
—Popping the champagne, Honey.
—Champagne? Is this a special occasion?
—Yes, you and your new husband are over.
            Zoey then rushed the Roths into the kitchen and seated them, with their plates already full. And suddenly, Frieda began to fill the entire course by talking. She talked about her very first day in New York, and how scary but exhilarating it was, and about how the Hermans must try living there sometime. Then, she gave play-by-play details on her second day in New York, and how scary but exhilarating it was. Really, the Hermans must try living there someday, or at least visit, but visiting really isn't the same. Zoey was surprised that dinner was able to last through Frieda's first full month in New York, but somehow they made it, and still had room for desert. But the champagne was long gone.
            Eventually, Frieda met Salvador, who Zoey was surprised to realize that he had not talked once since greeting her. Come to think of it, Zoey and Nestor had said very little while Frieda just talked and talked and talked.
—New York is really the best place in the world. It's a shame that people like you go their whole lives without ever being there.
—Well, we are plenty busy here.
—Yes, with what?
—Well, our work, of course!
—Your work? I thought you were just an administrative assistant?
—No, I'm the Office Manager at the local police station. It keeps me very busy.
—Yes, Zoey must keep the whole station running smoothly.
            This came from Salvador, who now had three empty wine glasses in front of him. He was pouring more alcohol into the glass that had actually been bestowed to him, while one empty glass was originally gifted to his wife and one was supposed to be Nestor's.
—Well, thank you, Salvador. That is what they say. Sometimes.
            Zoey was grateful that her glass was left unsnatched as she took another big gulp. At dinner parties with other couples, Zoey wasn't sure why, but she always drank like a fish.
—A really, really alchol-anonymous fish.
—What about you, Nestor? Are you the administrative assistant then?
—Marketing assistant, technically, but yes. My job is just to make sure everyone's marketing plans are in order.
—And is that rewarding?
—Well, we do only service non-profit organizations, so I do view my work as important.
—That's great, but there must not be much money in that then?
—No, not much, but enough for us.
            Nestor reached over and wrapped his arm around his wife, while Salvador reached over and took Nestor's wife's wine glass when the bottle on the table ran dry.
—Sweetie, pace yourself.
—What? I thought we were here celebrating!
—What would we be celebrating?
            Zoey asked this as she returned to her seat, after getting herself a new bottle of wine and an empty glass. Qucikly, before Frieda could begin her spiel again, she took a gulp so loud and large that Nestor replied with a look of shock. When she finished, she could see Frieda take in a long, deep breath, preparing not to pause for some time.
—I finally got my PhD!
—What?
—That's great, Frieda.
—Zah-owee, you're not saying anything.
—No, no, it's great, but how is that possible? We just finished school, and didn't you have a full-time job?
—I know, it was a lot of work. I could only take classes and study at night, or early in the morning. And the papers! But in the end, I was able to pull through with two PhDs, actually, one in English and one in Spanish Literature. My advisors told me that I was able to complete two PhDs faster than any student they have ever had! It was really difficult, and it almost took a strain on our marriage, right Salvador?
—No, baby, I was always supporting you.
            As Frieda continued her story, Zoey snapped in and out of attention. How could someone their age have two PhDs without being one of those freaky protigee kids? It just didn't make sense, and what hurt the most was that Zoey and Nestor were trying so hard at something that should be normal and natural, having a baby, while Frieda was off accomplishing--
—Zah-oweeeeee, why do you keep touching your stomach like that?
—What?
—Oh em gee, the fifth placement at the table!
            Like the sound of a thunder clap, Frieda slapped her husband out of his boozey, relaxed state and slammed her palms on the table. It shook their only set of fine china.
—You're having a baby, aren't you?
—Well, we are--
—I knew it! I am so happy for you. Salvador and I, we tried, before I decided to go back to school, but when it wasn't working, we went to see a specialist. Apparently, neither Salvador or I are likely to have children, but I am so happy for you! What are you going to name it?
—Um, um--
—We don't know yet.
            Zoey felt Nestor's reassuring hand slide into hers' and give it a squeeze.
—Can I make a suggestion? Ooooh, who are going to be the godparents? Have you bought any toys or clothes yet? May I make a suggestion about why you shouldn't buy too many pink items if it's a girl, and maybe buy some pink clothes for a boy. . . .
            Once Frieda was done, talking about Zoey and Nestor's imaginary child while Zoey and Nestor could do nothing but nod along, the Roths eventually paced up and left. Zoey wasn't even sure how it happened, but around midnight she found herself loading the dishes.
—What are you thinking, Honey?
—I want a baby.
—I know--
—No, we have to try harder, I want a kid now!
—Honey, just to beat them?
—No, of course not!
            Zoey shook off her husband's accusations and they finished clearing the table. Lying in bed that night, more like early morning, after trying to make a baby twice, neither of them spoke again about why Zoey seemed more determined than ever. When they weren't trying to make a kid, Zoey hadn't stopped touching her stomach once.
—You know, I have thought of an even better name.
            She was so wrapped up in her own thoughts, that she almost didn't hear her husband.
—What?
—Hermes.
—Hm, Hermes Herman.
—What do you think?
—I think that could work for a boy or a girl.
—I know, right?
            Nestor and Zoey fell asleep with both of their hands on Zoey's stomach, thinking like Hermes Herman would be the first baby ever born.



​

Ghost on a train

I am
a ghost
on a train
a drunken painter
using his hat
to make clouds
on canvas
a memory
of a war
long over
 
I am
the schizophrenic
neighbor yelling
at speeding cars
the unhappy
wife making
scrambled eggs
through hot tears
a soldier
with one leg
walking through
nightmares
 
and I am
what is left
when death
enters a
room and
everything else
even God 
leaves


​