Used to be, I couldn't get arrested in this town
even if I sent the cops the photos myself, along
with a menu of suggested charges.
I should have known, even if only on
an instinctual level, when they held the funeral
first, ahead of my arranged wedding
to some rich-ass fake wearing a rubber nose
and glasses disguise. He wanted to experiment,
but I guess he didn't mean on him.
We were such boneheads, we should have
used our noodles and not reenacted the battle
of Hastings using pipe cleaner royals
but how were we to know they would seize
power the way they did? Now the cops are
accusing me of bags under my eyes
and deploying every trick in the book to
keep Melvin Belli stuck in traffic while some judge
throws the book at me. A best-seller! Is there
to be no end to my suffering? I am branded
with a red-hot haiku and shuffled off to Buffalo
where it snows all summer and there are no
book shops or street carnivals where a girl
could double as a stilt-walker or a ventriloquist,
speaking from on high this cautionary tale
about the dangers of poetry, Bunsen burners, and robed authorities.
_________
for Word Garden Word List--Tomb Sweeping.
Music: Gong You Can't Kill Me
You get applause for the title alone! Wow. I enjoyed the false nose and the experiment - on him. LOL. Your imagination is like no other I have encountered. Superb.
ReplyDeleteDelightfully surreal and full of imagination and writerly flair - wonderful and original - Jae
ReplyDeleteMade me laugh out loud, especially that last line. It's not an easy life, being a poet, slapped with haikus and buried before you're married... (though in some cases that is probably a blessing.) My love for your title is on par with my affection for the titles Dali gives his most insane paintings, as good or better than the picture, though yours is easily equaled by the work as a whole. There is also an underlying note that perhaps isn't so pretty or so humorous. This is definitely surreal, but the whole point of that concept is to point out where reality is even stranger and no one notices, and it does that in spades. Loved it.
ReplyDeleteYou really gave me a good laugh with this one! Such clever use of the words....especially 'noodles.' I hadn't heard THAT use of the word in a long time! And I loved the description of the groom!
ReplyDeleteLaughing through my tears at this catch-22 of a circumstance! Such are the maladies of life when they all pile up into a "cautionary tale." "I am branded/with a red-hot haiku and shuffled off to Buffalo" has got to be one of my all-time fave Shay-isms. :)
ReplyDeleteOh, you made me grin. And laugh. All the way through. You know I needed this. I so enjoy how you rock the tongue-in-cheek style!
ReplyDeleteThat red-hot haiku will be the death of you! This was brilliant fun Shay and in all of it's surrealism I can still relate, especially to the bags under the eyes! Oh and that title is a mouth full of awesomeness my friend! This is some imagination that only your talent could have pulled off!
ReplyDelete"I am branded with a red-hot haiku" This gave me so many giggles. Oh what a fate that would be for you. This was one hell of a ride poem I loved reading shotgun on.
ReplyDelete