~Quodlibet (LXIX-LXXII)~

By WordWulf, 30th Apr 2011 | Follow this author | RSS Feed | Short URL http://nut.bz/26ldgr7-/
Posted in Wikinut>Writing>Poetry

~ a star in the melodrama of her own life ~ ain’t nothin’ mellow about it ~ dead babies & neat tricks ~ these folks say no one ever landed on the moon ~ it was all a put-on ~ like the Second World War and Hitler ~ camera tricks ~ piles o’ bodies ~ full calf black steel-toed boots and swastikas ~ there are those who don’t believe anything unless it happens to them ~ I’m like that sometimes ~

~58 Special~
~LXIX. Gypsies On the Moon~
~LXX. We Are What We Said Not~
~LXXI. Warthogs~
~LXXII. Slut TV~

~58 Special~

~Quodlibet~

I worked for ten years or so as a process server. Driving around trying to serve summons and complaints on folks who hadn’t paid their library fines or child support payments was boring and redundant work. I got shot at a few times, bit by dogs, spit on and cussed out on a daily basis. All expenses were on me and I was paid five dollars for each successful serve. I had to nail a hundred of those a week to pay the bills. It doesn’t sound like a very rational career decision but I had five kids to feed and take care of. One difficulty of being a single parent is finding a job that allows you time to get everybody up, fed, and off to school and, on the other end of the day, pick ‘em up, take ‘em home, feed and bathe ‘em, etc. So process serving made about as much sense as anything else at the time.

I did the bulk of my citizen serves on weekends when it was more likely to catch folks at home. Driving through neighborhoods all day in my truck, I got in the habit of listening to talk radio. It’s like Jerry Springer without the picture. The radio jockey focused on religion for his programs for a month or so. Each week he’d have a group of crazies on the phone hootin’ and hollerin’ about the world going to hell in a hand-basket because of the other crazies (the real ones) who didn’t agree with their god/devil, heaven/hell philosophies. I copped some grins off o’ that in between ducking and dodging bullets, dishwater, and bad dogs.

The radio man finished off his religion gig with a weekend of fanatics raving about the prophecies presented on the old television program, The Brady Bunch. At first I thought the radio guy was off on a goof, just having us listeners on. But his phone lines lit up all weekend. There were so many adherents to the sect that dissenters could hardly get a word in edgewise. These people were aware of each and every episode and minute nuances the average television viewer would miss.

I haven’t watched much television in my life. My parents were broke most the time and couldn’t afford one. I never watched The Brady Bunch but my kids did. They had no idea it had spawned a religion (I was glad of that). My favorite kook that weekend was a guy who claimed to have copped an exact replica of the outfit Marsha wore in episode fifty-eight. He had created a “temple” in his bedroom which consisted of a poster of Marsha on the ceiling, dead center over a single mattress on the carpet. A very devout and, in my opinion, very weird young man, he was ecstatic to report that at least twice every day he donned the outfit and whacked his dork while lying on his back on the mattress staring at his goddess in rapture.

I still haven’t seen The Brady Bunch. Guess these people aren’t hurting anyone wearing clothes matching actresses (would that be media cross-dressing?) while spanking the ol’ monkey. They sounded real and sincere. I’m glad to report, to my knowledge anyway, that I haven’t run into one face-to-face. Whenever I come across a man in a dress I get the hell on down the road.

~LXIX. Gypsies On the Moon~

Witness august circumstance
place your face smooth
in drifting cloud pillow
we are a flying sky
a morning come down
an earth surround
we seek the peaks of mountains high
eagles soar beneath us
ours is a lion pride
a fierce band of beggars
we are gypsies on the moon
been hidin’ out a while
since Neil Armstrong come pokin’

~LXX. We Are What We Said Not~

“Life is moving past me,” she cried
“I am a house divided
I believe I am about to fall
something has broken
it may be my heart”
He tells her “I can live
with the lie of what we are
how will I ever face
the truth of what we are not”t
here were times when his reality
collided with her phantasy
they became one
we are godless
we are lesser
an open wound and left to fester
a sickroom full of second guessers
self-appointed court of jesters

~LXXI. Warthogs~

They are saving us
buckle up and buckle down
or face the consequences
fear, loss of money
nights spent with the man
in his hotel prison
anal orifice probe
Caught out, we walk the line
“Have you been drinking, Ma'am?”
“No, I’m a warthog like you;
I absorb swamp breath through my pores”
“Assume the position”
They are saving us for themselves

~LXXII. Slut TV~

Architects of anarchy
George Washington
Potomac
Sisters of avarice sitting
on rotting syphilitic cocks
they hatch and become us
a nation of future beggars
beautiful television gods
divas, queens of sluts
rap stars, fuck-weenie men
your team, my team, no team within
armed children without hearts
they have taken our snow screen
late night TV

~Tom (WordWulf) Sterner~
~ Television/Boom Box ~
~Mirage~ 17
~Howling Dog Press/Omega~
~Quodlibet (LXV-LXVIII)~

Meet the author

WordWulf
Tom Sterner lives in Redding, California and Arvada, Colorado with wife Kathy. He has been published in numerous magazines and on the internet, including Howling Dog Press/Omega, Skyline Literary Review, The Storyteller, and Flashquake. His interne...(more)