Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Rumors

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:

Anonymous said...

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.

Anonymous said...

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.

MB said...

Ah, media, rumor, perception... where are the edges of truth? and how much do we really want to know? What a great riff.

Patrick M. Tracy said...

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.

Anonymous said...

"...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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