Now for something completely different...

Reflections of a Thirty-five year old Character Actor (a found poem)

I think, even though it's so awful
My first crush was probably on Hot Lips.
But do you want to know,
Seriously --
What was my porn?
Barnum and Bailey's Circus program.

A creepy lady.
And I --
six years old.

She was all sequined,
total camel toe,
some retarded hat,
a whip.

I remember looking at her
literally bossing around poodles --
rainbow-colored poodles.

"That's incredible."

It was an awakening moment
when I was a kid.

Hot Lips, in short order from there.

(thanks to JT, MLP, and Bust)

--

To e.s.

They said you were doing so well.
You showed up once, a few months before.

The same as you ever were
Shy-smiling with your hair in your eyes
Wearing that poor-fitting white suit.
White -- or more like cream?
It was an ancient, pitiful suit;
worn in the pants and knees

Jen bet Charlie that you'd split a seam
the way you sat hunched over your guitar
on the ratty carpet of Dan's apartment.

They said you were depressed,
as clinical as it sounds.
You didn't leave your apartment for a week.
When you did something else lingered in the air
amidst the cigarette dust.

Sara suggested we start checking all the familiar spots
between your fingers and toes;
like a criminal.

You put away your white suit and funny checkered tie;
the Converse stayed until the very end.
It was the last sight of you:
those knotted laces and the canvas fray.

That was the day that music died
There are no levees in Texas.
At least not where I live.
There as cheap wine though
Crumpled cigarettes, and a couple of your tapes, too.

No one spoke when you started playing again.
We tried to find a meaning in the lines;
some grand farewell or fuck you to the world.
We tried to find signs of life with all its meaning
to try and make sense of our own, existing confusion.

The next day, your mom came over to say hello.
Tucked over her arm was that white suit in a plastic bag.
I tried not to see the similarities between it
and you in the morning after
the EMTs wheeled you down the stairs.

She told me you had always been a good boy, a smart boy.
That it wasn't your fault, some failing of her own.

After she left we thought back to that night --
No one could have ever guessed that the stitches split would be yours.

Two stab wounds in the chest:
because it's one for the money,
two for the show.