Monday, June 2, 2014

Poem: Collision


Collision

Serenity in a box,
Carnie Stratton treads the boardwalk,
flipping taffies, duke of dandy,
cormorant of the soul,
cheesemaker to kings.

He stops and sniffs the air.

Three football fields far,
a very small man steps to the
planks, red Ray-Bans intended for glory.
He applies sunscreen to his head,
a coffee-colored bowling ball,
ripples his abs at a pack of
juveniles who giggle.

A certain thing quivers the ionosphere.
He paces forward.

Carney passes the bumper cars,
chewing on a pretzel,
when he spots the disturbance:
a lime-green Speedo, advancing
toward him like a low-lying Frisbee.

A seagull lands on Carnie’s shoulder,
holding a lit cigarette. Carney swaps him
for a chunk of pretzel.

Sunnyvale Shorty stops and squints.

Nice bird.

Thanks.

Shortie reaches into his Speedo and
extracts a golf ball.

We gonna do this thing?

Nobody’s stoppin ya.

A game of miniature golf may
not mean the universe, but
prelude is everything.
Only we decide what’s trivial.
The rest can go to a
hot blue Hades.

Carnie takes a final puff and
crushes the butt on a mermaid’s tail.

I’ve always thought that Shorty was
kind of an obvious nickname.

Shortie smiles.

I got no complaints.
It’s the truth.

He pocks the ball toward
Neptune’s Castle. It comes out the
other side and brushes the hole,
as close as wish is to want.

At the tip of Antarctica,
an iceberg breaks free.



From the collection Fields of Satchmo 
Photo by MJV

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