My friend Ron Goba gave an intimate reading to an enthusiastic crowd last night. Ron's work is very dense and he read eight poems, which at the moment I was enjoying them were hard to jot down. Therefore I cheated. I took his eight poems, read them over after Stone Soup ended, and incorporated imagery in each one to get an ending to the odd slice of life I was creating with a character I made up on the spot. I couldn't have done it any other way. Enjoy. And thank you, Ron.
Loaned Time
We are all naked
under our costumes.
Our street clothes spit glazed
by madmen on the streets.
Their vulgarities shriek
like a mockingbird's outcry.
The bank manager looks on
with one of three lovers from work.
He stares at the insane,
quietly planning road trips
He's pre-approved for time off
due to privilege, able to
secretly set his schedule
to the beauty of te sun,
a detox to his mind
before he's out there
where the rest of the wild things
grew up and roamed wrong.
The labyrinth of his blind spot
fills a world's worth of denial.
Time to get away before
the pushy new girl comes in
claiming ownership
of all he surveys
reminding him again
of his widow,
The only one Virginia Woolf
would be afraid of,
his sonata in flesh, the medusa
he kept looking back to,
the terroist in his life
he would always let win.
the reason his suit coat hip flask
was empty for so long,
the girl who made Georgie Porgie Cry,
the Shazam to his Captain Marvel,
the extra change he walks out to give
the escaped convicts outside,
the Grecian Urn with the story of his life
eroded in the middle.
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| Apologies to Chris Fitzgerald and Dexter Roberts, who read after Ron. |
Special thanks to Karen Locascio, David Miller, Gawaine Ross, Big Poppa Ben, Martha Boss, Surat Lozowick, Yvonne, Ron Goba and James Van Looy.
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