7/14/2016 0 Comments Three poems by Ace BoggessHair Dye She bought a box of hair dye, so I know she didn’t kill herself: the thought kicks up dirt in my head. It’s sort of awful, & I sort of regret it, but don’t know where I might find coolant for the doubt engine. She plays hopscotch amongst abysses: each day a new look at old horrors. I take her to her visits with the doc, try to keep her occupied, & I feel like a ghost in the garden. I latch onto whatever sounds like hope, & what’s more hopeful than hair dye? Brown Six-A, I think: closer to her natural than the various shades of low self-esteem she’s worn for months. Better a dye job than a die job: another unpleasant thought. So’s do-it-yourself-- a phrase I’m glad is missing from the box as if a sign inside a casket that avers, If you can read this, you’re too close. Motion Picture Attention, please! Silence your cellphones or set them to a muffled buzz Before the show begins—an epic film: romantic, action/adventure, scary story Called Your Life from the Beginning. You should expect a fair amount of sex Despite the protagonist’s blemishes, awkward manner, anxieties like a stew Eerily oozing with tension like old, embittered soldiers on stools at the V FW as they relive their wars. Wouldn’t watch if it all went smoothly, would you? Great stretches might drag on a bit, so you’ll beg for the excitement, However dark, when the hero suffers enough, stops crying, & finally kisses Insecurities goodbye. Oh, how glorious as you see him (or her) Just wing it, damn the torpedoes, etc., etc., disarming fears like bombs in Iraq. Keep seated for the good parts. If you need to use the restroom, don’t get up Lest you miss a major plot point: childhood fistfight, high school, clarinet solo, Malicious words to a lover on the phone that leave him (or her) alone again. Now the hero faces obstacles like doing laundry & paying rent, an encomium Of day-to-day drudgeries more awful than ax-wielding psychos. You will Plead for pause from the carnage, yet suspect that heroes at first lack Quick enough wits, sometimes more than half. One might goof like a hapless DJ Rocking out on his first day to a song in his head he doesn’t play. I Swear, it’s better as scenes get faster & tough-goings tougher. Oh, The star wises up amidst jobs, marriage, kids, divorce, a cold-nosed dog Under blankets prodding her skin on a winter night, then a countdown of Violent outbursts: parents dying, uncles, siblings, cousins (one, two, three). Where the story finally falls apart—you should anticipate—is near the end: Xing out the last days with too many epilogues, a climax anticlimactic. You will witness the fade-to-black as it mostly grays, drains the tub, Zaps all life from the cinema with its, Que sera sera. When Worlds Collide Paramount Pictures, 1951 Remember when the world ended? Remember when most people died because they weren’t engineers, smart enough, or lucky? Yes, tsunami or two, a little shake, rattle & roll, & bye-bye kids with their semiautomatic rifles, dim- & slick-witted politicians, cowboys, cornfields & portraits of carpenters. Sayonara outspoken actors, church steeples, bourbon, & Collected Poems of Pablo Neruda. We never saw any intimate details, although the cover on the DVD swore Academy Award, Best Special Effects. Must have been the panoramic shots of corpseless devastation, or else that alien landscape briefly glimpsed by those pragmatic sons of bitches after you & I & everyone were toast. Bio: Ace Boggess is the author of two books of poetry: The Prisoners (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2014) and The Beautiful Girl Whose Wish Was Not Fulfilled (Highwire Press, 2003). His novel, A Song Without a Melody, is forthcoming from Hyperborea Publishing. His writing has appeared in Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, RATTLE, River Styx, North Dakota Quarterly and many other journals. He lives in Charleston, West Virginia.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
April 2024
Categories |