Saw 101010101

 

No one has ever seen Mr. Cobol.

He's like an eclipse, we all use special mirror boxes, but still

he is bright, electrical, and smells of Ozone cologne. 

His disembodied voice materializes out of the intercom.

"Get down from there and report to my office."

Which one of me, I wonder?

No one has ever been to Mr. Cobol's office. 

It's said it's down a long hall, through a tube and up a ladder.

Some say he dances there on the head of a pin.

I select full harlequin costume and megaphone,

trumpeting, "Mr. Cobol, Mr. Cobol. wherefore art thou, Mr. Cobol?"

It's not love, but it's urgent. I need this paycheck.

Mr. Cobol responds--out of the ether!--with mechanical poetry

any simp could compose. I loose my infinite number of monkeys

and hear Mr. Cobol howl jaggedly, bleeding junk data.

Now Mr. Cobol's shadow self emerges, creeping though the ducts

for the air conditioning and all of our eyes. Many go blind.

I play a saw, wahhh wooooaaahh slashing his scores, stee-rike!

Some say that Mr, Cobol is the Ultimate Umpire,

regal, invisible, all-powerful, robed in Rules like Nebuchadnezzar

and the score is always 1-0. I saw lovely Sally in half, now there's 2.

It's said that Mr. Cobol has learned to play the saw, too,

but I know better. My monkeys have him moaning wahhh woooahh

over the intercom, making calculations, spitting out memos.

Me: Two.

MC: One!!!!

Monkeys: five!!!

MC: zeeeerroooooo...

Me: Nine!

MC; zee roooe

Monkeys: Nein! 

Mc: uhhhhhwaahhh oooo

Me: Since I sawwww her standing there!

MC: oeeoowww, oggghh

Monkeys: Not your steppin' stone!

Me: Stoned?

MC: one...zero...liftoff...

Monkeys: happy trails, pardner!

Me: Haw! better skeedaddle!

MC:

MC:

MC: master

MC: master of

MC: Master of Ceremonies

Monkeys: Evacuate!

Me, wearing balloon pants and tapping head: Can't touch this!

Bette Davis: Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride. 

_________

for desperatepoets "Slam At The Singularity Corral. "

Note: In All About Eve, Bette Davis actually said "bumpy night", not "bumpy ride", but the misquote serves my ending better. 

Music: William Mapother plays the saw for Brit Marling in Another Earth. 

Seventeen

 The summer I was seventeen,

I read The Bell Jar

Howl

A Coney Island of the Mind

and Lost Weekend.

The neighbor's garden had

decorative bells

hung above the river stones.

Every tongued bell

is keen to find language

for (w)ringing out its pain.

_____

for dverse quadrille for whom the bell tolls

music: judy collins the bells of rhymney

Remember the Maine

 

(My) lovers might last longer

I say to the dog, a philosopher of sorts himself,

were they more like Teddy Roosevelt

or even Alice. 

They'd look killing

in stiff collars

of khaki

or Irish lace.

Things are never the same

as they appear in the catolog.

Lovers are never as nice

when they want you to do crazy, perverse, upsetting things

like leaving the house.

That innocent carton

knows its milk will go bad, but won't say so.

It still wants to talk about forever,

especially at 3 a.m.

I always recommend blaming the Spanish

for any little thing that may happen to blow up.

You have such honest eyes,

such lovely hands when you take mine.

"Talk to me," you say,

in a voice as warm as Havana Harbor.

"Remember the Maine!" is what I say as you get up to pack,

but Teddy would have grinned

and Alice would have understood.

---------

Image: "Woman Standing In Doorway" by Albert de Belleroche (1864-1944)

I Spoke Worlds

I spoke worlds,

but found myself a stranger in them all.

Each was beautiful,

but in each it was always night.

I sang stars,

one more distant than the next.

On each it was blindingly bright,

but time and silence drove them mad.

A man came to me and said,

"You are lovely but no one can see you."

A woman came to me who could,

but she constantly mistook me for herself.

I chanted children

who were mine but not mine.

Each carried a candle,

my body the wax they were made from.

I spoke worlds,

and all they were was lonely.

I sang stars,

separated by all that I feared and hated and could not forgive.

A man came to me and said,

"Stop talking."

My Lord, I thought,

and opened to him like a magnificent chasm. 

_______

 

Wee-Ooh

Can you hear my thoughts?
You ought to be able to,
it ought to be a snap
there's an a app for that
a map for that
don't be an ass for that's the worst thing you could do, I think.

But if you can hear my thoughts,
it's not like you didn't know I was gonna say that
it's so easy
lemon squeezy
let's go crazy it's the sanest thing to do.

And la la la
I can't hear you, all you alien abductors
train conductors
found and fucked 'ers 
spinning around the planets like Super Nobody

La la la, oh
I'm not listening, here in the great midwest
what I like best
what I want to suggest
is that we change the station change the station....

So, can you hear my thoughts?
What did I just dream about?
Do I have to get out
the hand puppets just to make myself clear
and if you don't hear what I haven't said,
it's no use, like shouting at a foreigner, a waste of time I think.
_____ 

For Marian's Music Prompt: Dar Williams. Image at top: Clemence Poesy.