Epics and Fictions

Bit of weirdness today. I've been figuring out my view on poetry lately--an important distinction that I have made (for my writing at least) is between fictional poetry, where I'm putting on some form of mask, and, well, I guess I'd refer to it as something like "normal" poetry for lack of a better word. This set of poems has elements of both I guess. Along with this thought, I should add that the character of "Andy" may appear in one or more of the poems in this centennial set and I somewhat see this person as my poetic alter-ego. Err...enough with me talking at you...Wait, first I should mention that this set ends in an epic. 77 lines. I think it's sort of worth it though.

"Replacements"
The perfect mate
will always be there for your rainy days
and can make you happy no matter what.

The perfect mate
quickly ends every argument
by accepting all blame.

The perfect mate
will only join you in bed
and never has you up at night worried.

The perfect mate
knows every thought you have
but is not jealous or pushy or anything like that.

The perfect mate
is grown
in the oceans of Ganymede,
gender is chosen approximately
three weeks after germination,
but only by specifications of the future owner.

It sells for $49.95 plus processing & handling
and you should not accept
any imitators--
this is the real deal
offered now in our limited time offer.
Please allow about a month and a half for shipping.


"Regulations of Window-shopping"
Stare at the tops of the stores in the mall
and you can still see people to avoid them,
but do not have to deal with eye contact.
Walk quickly.
Regard nothing with enough thought
so as to create a new memory.
You are just a spoiled
young man
--really just a boy--
scared by his own anger
and converting it to work
into joules
that you are burning
with each step.
Do not run
or otherwise draw attention to yourself
and don't speak.
In fact
please stop this inner monologue.


"Lunacy"
Listening
to the sounds
of Henry
playing his electric piano
with headphones in

is a bit like a dissection
and this guy's going to be a doctor
so
it sort of makes some sense,
don't you think?

Now
on five hours of sleep last night
I can barely stand
so maybe I'm only being floored
by ordinary thoughts

but my mind
is telling me,
"Andy, now,
remember this moment.
There's something here."

Billy Joel playing in the background
is important
and these people I know--
I know I'm making horrible connections
but this campus means something to me

an emotion I can't describe
like the dark side of the moon
and something that I don't always want to admit to
like a chaste boy's crush--
a nondescript feeling shaped

like the back of Quasimodo.


"Under the surface of things"
Do you remember that summer
when you dared me to go into the abandoned theme park?
You said,
"I'll give you twenty bucks,
if you break into
the back of that
fake fortune teller's booth."

And I wasn't really
doing it for the money,
but rather to impress you,
when I hopped the fence around midnight sometime in last August.
I cracked the lock easily
and walked into the back door,
entering a hallway that was much too long to really exist.

Walking down it,
I came upon an androgynous figure
wearing a shirt that said on the back,
"The Human Race,"
and looking into a dark lake ahead of it
that appeared to be made up of
some liquid other than water.

Suddenly
a reflection of a flame formed in the fluid
and it spoke something unintelligible.
The figure reacted oddly,
gesturing with its hand to its ear,
as if it wasn't able
to catch what had been said.

So the fire began again
and asked "Where?"
and the thing in front of me responded,
"Geography,"
and the fire asked, "When?"
and the person said,
"History."

The conversation paused
as answers and questions were mulled over
and I could feel actual heat coming
from the glow in the pool.
"Who?"
it finally asked,
and the form replied, "Politics."

The flame appeared to almost take the form of something,
but it quickly returned to a shapeless blob
and said, "What?"
to which it got the answer
"Math,"
which it didn't really seem to like so much,
so it spit out, "How?"

"Science," was the response,
which seemed to almost defeat the fire,
it shimmered in the lake,
but did not vanish,
and once settled it asked, "Why?"
and the figure said, "Philosophy,"
which caused something to happen.

The flame suddenly made itself manifest
into the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen,
and the person jumped into the lake
and looked back at me pleadingly,
asked if I was going to join it,
and it had the face
of everyone I'd ever known.

I blinked my eyes then
and when I opened them
I was alone in a tiny box
looking out at the roller coasters
like that fortune teller guy that you found so cute did every day
and as I walked home
I kept asking myself

Was I asleep?
Had I ever been awake?
Have any of us ever been awake?
Do we ever learn anything?
So anyway,
this is what I've been thinking about
since I got that letter in the mail from you last week asking if I could lend you
[*indent*] some money.