At first, they said that
I'd died in Vegas,
stabbed through the
heart by a jealous
guy who'd once
been an admirer
found by the
concierge who
had been calling
up prostitutes for
me, a bottle of
Viagra in one hand
and a riding crop
in the other,
but that, of course,
was not the full
story, or even
substantially
correct, and
so we move on,
finding new
fictions to weave
upon the loom.
Later, whispering
drunkenly into the
ear of a gabby woman
at one of the bars
that's considered
tres chic, they said
that I'd been caught
with hard drugs in
Phoenix and locked
away, that my
lawyers had covered
it all up, and that
the movie I'd scrapped
last year would be recycled
from the cutting room
floor to fill the void,
but that, of course,
was not the full
story, or even
substantially
correct, and
so we move on,
finding new
fictions to weave
upon the loom.
Then there was the
story, two months back
in the rags, about my
collapse at a party
in New York, about
how I'd been depressed
and not eating, about
how I was back on
the sauce again,
and that everyone who
knew me was terribly
worried I'd go
completely off the
rails, maybe kill
myself because I'd
been so down since
that starlet I rode on
the elevator with
said that she thought
I looked like her
grandfather, and that
she'd only kissed me
because of the X she'd
been on,
but that, of course,
was not the full
story, or even
substantially
correct, and
so we move on,
finding new
fictions to weave
upon the loom.
And really, what does
it matter what is true,
or what I've been doing
with my time, or if I'm
about to go off the rails,
because I'm a stranger,
someone who will
ever be unknown and
unimportant in all
but my own mind,
and the weaving
upon the loom is nothing
more than idle chatter,
talking about the weather,
talking about things that
are safe, away from the
awful world filled with
death and horror and
injustice, I am a shield
against the uncanny reality
of the evening's hard news.
5 comments:
Whoa, dude!! I don't know how I feel about this poem yet. It has this great, funny, Hunter S. Thompson thing going on, right up until the last stanza when you uncork a big can of "death and horror and injustice." URK! I gotta digest that for a little while.
On an unrelated note, can you tell Paul G. to set his blog so non-Blogger members can comment? I mean, I know I can email him myself about it. . . I am just being lazy asking you to do it. . . but anyway. . .
Meantime I have been reading a lot of Bible and Zohar lately. Getting a big mystical groove on.
The rumor world is so close to us these days that it's often difficult to tell the difference between fact and fiction. You've certainly put your finger on the problems in this poem. I like it Thanks.
Ah, media, rumor, perception... where are the edges of truth? and how much do we really want to know? What a great riff.
Rachel,
Very happy to have the Hunter S. Thompson reference, deserved or not. Sorry if the darkness bled in at the end and made your reading experience, but I think that's the upshot of all the obsessions with trivia--it's keeping one's self busy and distracted from the things that are too hard to understand and too big to change.
I'll send an Email to Paulo and tell him to get his Blogger tweaked and fiddled.
Get your mystical groove thing goin' Rachel! Hope to see you over here again soon.
Doc,
No Problemo.
MB,
Riff--I think that's a great way to sum it up. I didn't know if I felt focused enough to do a more artful piece, but I was "there" enough to riff.
Thanks everyone, for coming by. More Hawkcirclry soon.
"...the uncanny reality of this evenings hard news." I think rumors and gossip sometimes do provide a distraction for some. This piece struck me as whimsically humorous and entertaining.
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