Suburban Elegy III

Last week
I walked past
plastic-lined homes
to a wetlands reserve,
where I cursed god,
and my loneliness
and felt my Anger almost
claw itself out of my tired muscles
as I screamed, smashing
a branch against its tree,
while my Sadness sat
nearby on a log,
looking on in almost
scientific curiosity.

Only days ago
a newly unemployed father
walked his two children past
those plastic-lined homes
to the wetlands reserve.
He was probably near the same
place I had been.
the boy in second grade,
the little girl in kindergarten.
He shot them there,
one in the stomach,
the other in the head,
before blowing a hole in his own.

Near the place I felt so angry
about things I can't even
remember now,
the place
where his daughter
must have felt glee
in the mid-morning sunshine,
about finally learning
the mysteries of the letter Z.
Where his son must have
grown restless in
waiting for summer,
but still his heart
almost shook
at the thought
of all the things
he had yet to learn.

Like forgiveness.

Old work rediscovered

Production Meetings for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Producer One: Who can we get to close out the movie with an inspirational pop song linking the Magical world of Narnia to 1940s London?
Producer Two: OMG, we like, sooo need to get Regina Spektor?
Producer Three: Doesn't she write songs about manic-depressive women and drug abuse?
Producer Four: God, it's Perfect.

---

Screenwriter One: So, after everything is done, and the human soldiers are slaughtered wholesale by a veritable freakshow of mythical creatures they (the humans) have been told don't exist slash (/) are evil, Caspian is crowned king and the humans, (who have lost their sons and husbands to the Narnians, who themselves were also slaughtered by those very same soldiers) join hands and experience totally perfect racial integration.
Screenwriter Two: Exactly.
Producer One: Wow. That is so true to life. This is why you fellas are in the movie biz.

---

Director: Right, even though it's his land of Narnia, filled with loyal Narnians who love him and are being ruthlessly murdered by an oppressive force as they attempt to fight for their land and freedom, Aslan (Remember guys, this is All-E-Gory, he's not actually Aslaaaan...), well, Aslan refuses to come help them until the Pevensie children blindly go looking for him in the middle of a forest, and then he gets angry and makes them apologize for not blindly following him earlier. Only then does he stop the genocide being committed upon his people.
Screenwriter One: C.S. Lewis was such a visionary.
Director: Guys, I'm so proud of you, this is really going to resonate with Christian audiences and help kids come to love 'Aslan' and want him in their hearts. Because they should. If not, they're going to burn in hell and regret it FOREVER.

(Meanwhile, outside in the hall:)

Random Eavesdropper One: Golly-Gee-Willikers, I never thought of it like that. I certainly don't want to burn in hell! Thanks, C.S. Lewis, you are the bee's knees!
Random Eavesdropper Two: Man, why didn't I learn from the FIRST movie?

(He runs to the nearest restroom to look at himself in a mirror, sobbing and smashing his face against it.)

Random Eavesdropper Two: STUPID FAT COW! WHY CAN'T YOU LOVE ASLAN! LOVEASLANLOVEASLANLOVEASLAN YOU FUCKING FREAK! YOU PATHETIC FAILURE!!!! I SHOULD JUST CUT MYSELF! I'M NOT WORTHY OF ASLAN'S LOVE!
(He picks up a shard of mirror glass. There is blood everywhere.)

---

Director: Also, even though its not anywhere in the book, since Susan Pevensie is like twelve and Caspian is like eighteen, we should let them have a fling. If Warren Jeffs can do it, then by golly, SO CAN WE!

---

(In the theatre, after the first showing:)

Audience Member: The film on my teeth after a three-day drunk has more cinematic value than what we just watched.

Pioneers

The Starbucks cup informs me
that I'm a Pioneer in using recycled cups.
My mind floods with images
of the nearish future,
Where kids in silly outfits
get out of a flying bus,

heading to a museum devoted to Pioneers.
One room just for Lewis and Clark,
They press their faces against the glass of
Dioramas depicting men in raccoon hats,
huddled over a fire in the Rockies,
their plastic fingers tinged blue
for effect.

Another room devoted
to the rest of the settling of the West,
Filled with photos of men and women
in front of Conestogas, and off to the left,
the graves of babies dead from Typhoid.

And to another room, where they enter
one of those old-timey Atlantis Shuttles,
and read a copy of the speech Nixon would have given
if their shuttle exploded up in the atmosphere,
or their landing vehicle couldn't take off,
leaving Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong to
die on the cold moon, all alone.

Lastly, to a room devoted to We,
the Pioneering Starbucks customer,
who braved $3.95 and the price of gas
for a cup of sludgy sugar.
And their teacher laughs and says
"Luckily, these pioneers never suffered a scalping."

Suburban Elegy II

Today,
I played a game with a student
and
let her win. After,

she said:
"Thanks for letting me win.
That never happens at home."

Later, another child asked to
share something with the class.

She said:
"My daddy was beaten to death.
This is
the dress I wore to his funeral."

Then she twirled around.