There Is No Fast, There Is No Furious

To the Guy Revving His Engine Next to Me,

What are you doing?  Look me in the eyes.  Can you see how green my eyes are? Here. Let me turn on the overhead light for you.  Pretty green, right? That's the color of disdain.  The traffic light is about to turn that color.  The traffic light and I are not impressed.  That's why it's still red.  It's giving you time to pull out of your douchebag nosedive.

Let's also look at a few obvious things.  First off, I'm driving a hybrid.  That's like racing a toy car. Worse. I'm actually in a hybrid SUV.  That's like racing a toy car with a kitten sitting on it.  It's not even bullying.  It's just a weird display of power.  Like you're demonstrating that you're stronger than a frog.

Second.  What about me clues you in to any type of competitive nature?  I was just bobbing my head to some lo-fi indie jam.  I'm sitting in a way that helps my posture. I'm wearing a scarf.  Do you see a leather jacket?  Does my girlfriend have a black eye from my love clobber?  Do I glare out the window daring someone to race me as I flex my chest muscles back and forth like juggling two spray tanned coconuts?

Thirdly, what the crap decade do you live in?  Are we 50s greasers? Should we go outside town and race for pinks?  How about this?  Let's both drive as far as we can outside of town.  Oh, wait. I have a hybrid.  I could drive forever.

Or maybe you think this is The Fast and the Furious.  Or wish it was. Did you think Vin Diesel was a good actor? Because he's not.  He has two acting modes.  Mad and About-To-Get-Mad.  Paul Walker is worse. He has one mode.  It's called At-Least-I-Can-Act-Better-Than-Tyrese-Gibson.  Yes, Meathead.  I saw Fast and Furious 2.  I'm familiar with the franchise.  And even still, I have no desire to race you.

Did you just call me a female body part?  I accept that.  Because the reproductive system is great and it's how you and I came into this world.  I just called you a reproductive part as well.  It's called the Vas Deferens.  You should be able to find it in any anatomy drawing of the male reproductive system.

And I bet you like that drawing, huh?  You want to frame it.  Well, I know a nice framing shop.  And the picture framers will know right off what I know.  What's that?  "Know what?" you say?

That you're gay! I got you, meathead!  Light's green, you suck, pedal to the metal, dude lover!

Dear Max, Happy Crapday

Sometimes I write letters to a six year old named Max.  Here's some. And another.  Sometimes he writes letters back.  We hate each other. Don't worry. It's healthy.

~~

Oh hello Max,

Isn't life full of coincidences?  We both live in New York now.  We both went to your grandparents for Thanksgiving.  We both know you're having a birthday tomorrow.  And only one of us is going.

So EVERYBODY got invitations but ME?  I like Chuck E. Cheese.  I like celebrations of life.  Just because I'm a grown up man, I don't have feelings? I mean I'll be cool if I don't go. I won't like eat a mountain of french toast because it tastes like self loathing.  I won't cry in the shower until the hot water runs out. I'm just saying that this is low, Max. Even for you, you heartless little monster.

Do you know what I'm going to do tomorrow while everyone goes to your birthday party? I'm going to find a simultaneous party going on at the same Chuck E. Cheese.  And I'm going to make it louder and more fun than your party.  Too bad you're not going to get all the free tokens I'll be giving to the OTHER BIRTHDAY BOY. Too bad you won't be learning MY SECRET COOL HIGH FIVES.  Too bad you won't be receiving an ACTUAL AK-47 with PRE-LOADED BANANA CLIP.

Nope. Because your party is going to suck. I'll make sure of it.  I'll slip the high school student playing Chuck E. Cheese a twenty to ignore you.  Or maybe even shake his head at you.  Or give you the shame fingers.  A very disturbing image of scraping one index finger across another.  It will haunt you.

Do you want to be traumatized?  Do you want to have a pitcher of Dr Pepper spilled on you, by a waiter I also bribed, in front of all your friends? Do you want to see a confused child at the party next to you be reunited with his estranged Uncle Robert who has brought him his very own donkey and illegal automatic machine gun that could have been yours?  Because I'm telling you, I have a very convincing story concocted about this Uncle Robert character and how he was switched at birth in the hospital.

Fine. Do whatever you want.  Have your party.  Get older without me.  Even your arch enemy can have feelings, okay? You'll understand someday.  When you're not so stupid from being young.

Tomorrow, if you look to your left I'll be the guy at the other party wearing a mock turtleneck and blond goatee, trying to calm a donkey.  If you look really hard, I'll be mouthing Happy Birthday as everyone sings it to you.  I'll be the one with a tear in my eye.  And a tear in my heart.

Love and Hate,

James Best

Not Everyday is a Birches Day

This is what Valerie has said to me three times over three days. I've been writing poems. I've been knocking my head on the wall over this one. FOR THREE DAYS. And we're talking hours. 4 to 6 hours a day for 3 days.

I become obsessed sometimes. Even when I know it's not going well. Even when I know that the piece is going to turn out just par. It's something I read about Sylvia Plath. How she would just keeping work on a piece until completion. No matter how sucked it was.

Also, I've been obsessed with literary terms. So every break I took had me skipping from one term to the next.

Epizeuxis - when a word is repeated for emphasis such as: "No, no, no!" Or "The Horror, the Horror, the Horror."

Catachresis - when a mixed metaphor is introduced knowingly and on purpose to produce an effect

And the actual word I've been trying to find for three days:

Antimeria - when a noun is used as a verb

Alright, so here's the poem. It is what it is. I've trimmed it down. Rewritten, restructured. Written way too long to get this par piece of nonsense. On to other things.

Oh, and the reason Valerie says that to me is thus:

My favorite poem is "Birches" by Robert Frost. I think it's brilliant. It's all the things I want in my poems. Extended metaphors, human involvement, real feeling, childhood, innocence, spirituality, death, and humor.

I told Valerie that one day I want to write my "Birches". Of course, I'll probably never know when I wrote it. But I want to write something that good.

She's been telling me to lower my expectations for the day with this phrase. Every time she sees me pulling at my hair at my computer.

Is this done? No. Should there be an extra step before the ending and preceding stanza? Yes. Am I sick of this poem for now? Absolutely.

The Wayback

Somewhere in Iowa, the corn closed in
so close we high fived it from our windows
until our hands were mittened in tassels.

It was June. We called ourselves Vacationeers.
The rhythm of summer was a seamed highway.

If I had my choice, I opted for the Wayback.
That unique seat particular to the American station wagon.
A happy blip for our family.
We rode it right out of style.

I was a child. And children understand rules.
Handed down rules. Game rules.
Fingers in an L are a gun
you can point at other cars. Safely.
They don’t have to play. It’s the rules.
You can pretend to die. Bang is a magic word.
Magic words shouted outside guarantee your place.
Shotgun! Back! Wayback!
Choose your perspective.

I want to leave one time unbroken.
A little childhood clean. Sacrosanct.

If I say I saw the clouds in the Blue Mountains,
dropping around us like weary balloonists.
Believe me. Because I believe me.
If am the same age in these memories,
I am sure I was.

I get stuck in that seat.
Never a destination in view. Showing up last to anywhere.
You can get used to the past. This can become your window.

I only know I arrived when I leave.

The Kentucky of our minds rarely holds up.
Shotgun was where you could wear adultness.
Drink an extra coke, count the silver coins for tolls.
If your Mom was moodstruck, she would tell something
about your Dad, described with could of and was.
His face. Books. Your likenesses.
If you drove through his state, you’d never stop.

Why does every other here feel like vacation?
I am somehow still waiting for that wagon.
To honk the horn, tell me to call my place again.