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local time travel
by Gabriel RicardI’ve got blood that talks and moves
through the skylight system
like a small mountain of drenched paper.
Thank-God the Family Dollar version
of Tylenol PM only costs two dollars,
or I’d probably never get around to that dream
where you wake up sick with honesty and long fingernails.
I don’t even like to leave the house anymore.
It’s become an act of common courtesy
between my hopes and drugged anxiety
to make sure the curtains are stapled to the walls
of whatever motel I’m using to learn how to play the guitar.
You love to surprise me. You love to travel
and cover cities and decades to the sound
of five seconds in a failing motorcade.
All I’ve got is skin and complaints.
There is nothing in me that can walk along
an invisible lake that’s settled just inches above
the seventy-five lane freeway that separates
these permanent mistakes from the hometown
consisting of nothing but the same old closed doors.
One day I’m gonna learn how to drive.
Eventually I’ll study the occult and figure out
why you laugh every time the January hurricane
rolls through Richmond and forces everyone
to go out and find new places to live.
You’re obsessed with private jokes. That’s what's so scary.
That and the way you have an awful lot of friends
for somebody who can’t go fifteen seconds
without a murder investigation from the caffeinated icons
who operate twenty-million miles upstairs.
I promise I’m not going to keep bailing out like this.
I swear I’m not going pretend I’m smarter than you.
The 2000’s were much faster than I ever thought,
and at this point I just want five good channels and a priest
who doesn’t make up the tongues he’s screaming in.
What I meant to say is that all I really want
is some history that isn’t so damn rigid.
It doesn’t really matter what I think or want,
but I’d appreciate it if you’d at least let me imagine
that it’s my choice to keep you in the loop on that.
You can have all the pills you want.
You can turn my apartment into an antique store.
Whatever makes you happy.
I’m not prepared to keep arguing.
Whatever makes you happy.
06/24/2010 Posted on 06/24/2010
Copyright © 2024 Gabriel Ricard
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Charlie Morgan on 06/24/10 at 05:02 PM ...gabe, i went ahead and read the whole pome, and yet, kept coming back to the first stanza...that's when you snared me[once again!] so, i scooted the chair closer/more comfortable and re-read, and re-read this one, as i am wont to do with 99.99% of all your work...sometimes i feel like an old railroad mail bag, hung out to be picked-up by the next otherway-bound train...and you have never let me down. wish i could talk to you; take less time and i could say alot about any o' your pomes, this one is tall, like yours are. love the ending, weeelll loved the whole enchilada. |
| Posted by George Hoerner on 06/24/10 at 07:05 PM Gabe you almost always intertwine some line worth holding onto until one dies. "What ever makes you happy", has kept many a marriage together forever. So I say it frequently, knowing I'd never make it without her and there really isn't too much else to worry about. My demands are so small that most wouldn't see them as demands. People who don't know how to say it just beat the hell out of the other party. |
| Posted by Therese Elaine on 06/24/10 at 09:27 PM This stings the way the over-familiar stings, that sharp hiss of remembrance, commiseration and condolence all blended together, when faced with the evidence of your all-too-real past/present/possible future. Simply amazing, Gabe. |
| Posted by Linda Fuller on 06/25/10 at 12:59 AM great stuff - really like the rhythm of your work. |
| Posted by Chris Sorrenti on 06/25/10 at 12:49 PM As always, some excellent lines in this Gab'. The whole thing flows and holds together quite nicely. |
| Posted by Morgan D Hafele on 06/26/10 at 01:12 AM love the closer to this man... i suppose that's why i've never won an argument ... i'm not ready for it either... |
| Posted by Glenn Currier on 06/26/10 at 04:27 PM This is a journey through space and time. The local spaces lived in while winking at the psyche, granting it its idiosyncrasies. The local time exploding in dreams. Why not remake history? We create our and others' present don't we? Like Charlie says about the truth... and I say it is socially constructed. Anyway, thanks for the timetrip. This is splendidly imaginative. |
| Posted by Ken Harnisch on 06/28/10 at 02:20 PM "What I meant to say is that all I really want
is some history that isn’t so damn rigid." Amen, Gabriel.And some people and a country and a world that aren't so damn rigid either.
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| Posted by Kristina Woodhill on 06/29/10 at 07:06 PM A distinctly unique first stanza. Loved the long fingernails stanza, the occult stanza, still pondering the "caffeinated icons", and find the "I just want five good channels and a priest
who doesn’t make up the tongues he’s screaming in." lines very funny. Thank you. |
| Posted by Laurie Blum on 07/01/10 at 07:21 PM Delightful and entertaining in a very film noir kind of way! Enjoyed this very much. |
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