Eddie and Sylvia

Eddie is fucked up again.
He is supposed to be mucking out the stalls, 
but there is a problem, the same problem as always--

The elephant shit looks like an old man's giant brown head,
the straw in it the hair, the shovel so handy!
He bashes at it with all his might, then runs for his wagon, and his pen.

Later, he is sorry.
Sylvia has him sitting in a trough, naked, red-eyed,
and she is tenderly washing away the last specks of dung from his face.
"You are a genius, Eddie," she says softly.
She wrings out the cloth, folds it neatly and lays it over the trough's edge.
"It's a brilliant story."

Eddie stays sober for a week.
Looking at the elephant shit, he sees Mount Olympus;
the straw in it is wings! Wings of the Immortals!
Thinking of his late mother, and of the women in whom he finds her kindness,
he throws down his shovel and runs for his wagon and his pen.

"Fuckin' ay, Eddie!" the crew boss roars, gesturing vaguely with his cigar.
"Can't you just shovel shit like I pay ya t'do?"
He can't.
He burns with shame and promises to do better,
but all the while he resents this cretin, this imbecile and his petty concerns!

Soon, Eddie is fucked up again.
Sylvia comes around to the animal trailers to try to soothe him.
Last time, she found him asleep in the tiger's cage;
she lifted his head from the cat's rough tongue and placed it upon her bosom.
This time, she finds him staring at elephant shit, his shovel forgotten.

"What is it, Eddie?" she asks, her voice betraying her worry.
"The birds!" he points, agitated and trembling.
Sure enough, crows are feasting on the droppings. 
He is still thinking about the Immortals. "Pallas! A bust of Pallas!" he cries.
"Eddie? Are you sure you're all right?"

But he is gone, off to his wagon and his pen.
This time, the crew boss will fire him, 
and the hopelessness of it all, the futility of Eddie's brilliance and her love,
sinks into her bones like sickness. 
"I'll be in the kitchen," she calls after his back, but she knows

by the time he comes looking for her she'll be gone.
_____ 

for Ella's very cool challenge at Real Toads. Combine a favorite poet with a circus setting.

Poe

His cape wet with rain,
Edgar Allan Poe slips into a 24-hour chain pharmacy under cover of night,
And asks the pharmacist for laudanum.

He is recognized.

The pharmacist is a crap poet who lives in a nearby bedroom community.
He participates in fantasy sports pools,
And worships Charles Bukowski.

Poe is strung out; desperate!
His shaking hands offer out-of-circulation bills, in wads.
"Laudanum," he repeats, with urgency.

Instead, the pharmacist
(whose name is Ted)
Starts rhapsodizing about "Buk".

There is so much blood.
Officers from this quiet suburb have never seen
Anyone impaled with an umbrella before.
A nearby display of magnifying reading glasses has been upset in the fracas,
And their empty lenses bear useless witness
To the waste of a human life.

An answering machine beeps.
"There is one pharmacy call," chirps a robotic female voice.
It will be pending for all eternity,
Or at least until the yellow crime tape comes down.

Meanwhile, Poe has scored something from a teenage boy loitering outside the 7-11.
He doesn't know what it is, but he takes it anyway, because
His girlfriend is gone,
His mind is a roiling snakepit,
And he has nothing else, nothing at all
To protect him from the storm.
_____

Lies

I was the first girl baseball star.

Babe Ruth once came to me in the holy wooden clubhouse where I dressed alone;

He arrived sober, quiet, hat in hand,

To ask my advice.

I told him:

Live temperately.

Recognize the hand of the divine in everything that you do.

Realize that the pitcher is a major leaguer, just as you are.

Be patient, wait for your pitch, but when it comes,

Swing hard and wail the living snot out of it.

I once met Mister Eddie Rickenbacker,

The celebrated flying ace.

I asked him what it was like.

He told me:

"The sky is filled with devils and blackbirds.

I find the enemy, then send them bullets like children's prayers;

When smoke begins to pour out of their machines like hubris,

They go down singing Lutheran hymns

And German beer drinking songs--

They fall

As softly as spring rain.

I once loved a dancer

Who worked at the One Eyed Cat in Baltimore, Maryland.

She told me she had once danced

For Mister Edgar Allan Poe

On the last night of his life.

People said it was drugs,

Drink,

Bad living,

But I think he was driven mad by love for someone he could never touch.

He died scratching poetry

Into the cobblestones

With his fingernails.

I was the first girl baseball star.

I once struck out Babe Ruth.

That was when I learned

That failure can be more beautiful, sometimes, than success--

And so I went home to the gypsy camp I came from.

I told them how I'd gripped the ball

And done everything the way I'd planned to;

These women who had known me all of my life,

Just laughed toothlessly, silently,

And sent me to collect the spirit of Edgar Allan Poe.

I took him up tenderly, like an angel, or a new mother,

Stroking his filthy hair;

I told him how every time my bat kissed the ball,

It would fly far and fast into the sky, disappearing like joy over the tin Coca-Cola signs

And into the hands of some grinning urchin in a newsboy cap--

Then I kissed him

And his spirit flew away like an oriole,

Set free by my love

And gone.

________