Poems Below The Line Read online

Poems Below the Line

  Assorted B Sides 1997-2012

  Terry McCarty

  Copyright 1997-2012 Terry McCarty

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book (except for excerpts quoted for reviews)

  may be used and reproduced in any manner whatsoever

  without written permission from the author.

  Dedicated to my wife Valarie.

  Table of Contents:

  Writer’s Block Explained—Version 3

  Hostile Acres

  I’m Afraid of Dennis Miller

  The Pickup

  Notes from Employee Below-the-Line

  Metaphor

  Learning How To Swim

  This Is the News

  Poem for DW

  For Our Cat Sinead in Tustin Tonight

  I Didn’t Find It

  Folk Music As Wooly Mammoth

  Found Poem from Blurbs for Recent Brendan Constantine Book

  Poem for Scott Wannberg

  Extras on the Beach

  Painting Brown Leaves Green

  Illinois

  Play That Broken Record

  Try To Walk Unafraid

  Poem Using Imagery Some Poetry Editors Might Not Like

  Remembering Rodney King

  New York City Subway Serenade

  My Sixties

  Growing Hair for the Wind

  About the Author

  Writer’s Block Explained—Version Three

  Stare at the blinking cursor.

  Watch it pulsate.

  Count the number

  of cursor blinks

  in a sixty-second time period.

  Retrieve stopwatch from desk drawer.

  Count the number

  of minutes it takes to stare

  at the throbbing cursor

  before self-hypnosis takes place

  and you enter a land

  where something surreal

  may occur

  to generate verse

  filling in white space

  on a computer screen

  where a cursor flashes on-off-on-off

  and waits patiently

  for something to make it move.

  Hostile Acres

  I help till the soil at Hostile Acres.

  Almost everyone carries a gun except me.

  Tried to learn once.

  Almost shot my big toe off.

  Some people came looking for work the other day.

  Didn't take long until the hired hands began talking:

  "They're taking our jobs."

  "How do you know whether or not they're American?"

  "Make them carry IDs."

  "What about injecting digitized guest-worker chips under their skin?"

  "Let's just tattoo a citizenship barcode on their forearms."

  And so on and so forth.

  Then a few shots rang out.

  This is what I heard a few minutes later:

  "It was a lone nutcase with a gun."

  "The nut's still alive."

  "No, he's dead for sure."

  "Thank God we can carry guns in public for protection.

  The maniac got dropped

  and we just let him bleed out."

  "There was a little boy caught in the crossfire.

  Don't know who shot him.

  Don't know how he got hit."

  Next day, we heard the President

  on the field radio

  saying that, at the very least,

  automatic weapons should be banned

  from use by the general public.

  A chorus of disapproval:

  DON'T TAKE OUR GUNS AWAY!!

  NO GUNS, NO SAFETY!!!!

  WE'LL BE KILLED FOR SURE!!

  HE'S NOT OUR PRESIDENT!!

  And so on and so forth.

  Then I heard a round of gunfire.

  The radio was destroyed immediately.

  The overseer yelled:

  PUT AWAY YOUR GUNS!

  And we went back to work

  tilling the soil at Hostile Acres--

  happy to hear nothing

  except the sounds of our own voices

  voicing the beliefs

  we don't need education for

  because we know how right we are in our guts.

  I’m Afraid of Dennis Miller

  I don’t want to get off on a rant here,

  but I had a nightmare just recently.

  In my dream, I saw former comedian Dennis Miller

  walking down State Street in Santa Barbara

  wearing a sandwich board saying

  NUKE IRAN AND NORTH KOREA

  BEFORE THEY NUKE US!!!

  and selling sealed-in-plastic paperback copies

  of General Douglas MacArthur’s autobiography.

  I’m old enough to remember when Dennis Miller

  was actually funny.

  This was when he was the fake newsman on

  SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE’S WEEKEND UPDATE

  and hosted syndicated and HBO talk shows.

  At that time, he poked fun at all kinds of absurdity--

  whether it was from the Left or the Right.

  Then, Dennis came out of the political closet

  and became a rabid Republican.

  He likes to say it was a result of 9/11.

  But Dennis was already lusting for the favor

  of George W. Bush and his acolytes

  after the 2000 election.

  And now he holds court on Fox News

  (motto: We Distort, You Decide)

  preaching to the angry-and-resentful converted

  like a slightly more jovial carbon copy

  of that master of fairness and balance-Bill O’Reilly.

  “Hey, Dennis!” I yell out.

  “I remember when you referred to

  Tammy Faye Bakker

  as The Stepford Hick on SNL.

  Now, you’re making nice

  with the religious right. What happened?”

  Dennis scowls and his face turns the color

  of a Red State.

  “If you say that again, I’ll sue the fuck out of you!” he hisses.

  “I’ve got a reputation to protect!

  Besides, pal, you sound as impotent as Woodrow Wilson arguing

  for U.S. involvement in the League of Nations.

  By the way, you wouldn’t be interested in a

  JUST SAY NO TO KOFI ANNAN button, would you?

  Of course not, you’re just another brain-dead liberal

  who won’t listen to the Truth!

  Get the fuck out of here

  and go crawl up Howard Dean’s ass,

  why don’t you?”

  I take the hint and start to walk away.

  But I now hear Dennis singing a parody

  of an old rock-and-roll song in an off-key,

  malicious-drunk-tormenting-bar-patrons voice:

  BOMB, BOMB, BOMB

  BOMB BOMB IRAN!!!!

  End of nightmare.

  Fade to black.

  The Pickup (a mood poem)

  on a soundstage in santa clarita,

  a movie crew is busy filming

  what is known as a pickup-

  a portion of a scene

  that needs to be reshot

  to the director’s satisfaction.

  It’s the final week of production-

  the time when pickups

  are often filmed.

  the mood on the set

  (an interior of an apartment)

  is surprisingly lighthearted.

  crew members tease each other

  in a good-natured manner

  as the shot is being set up.

  the prop woma
n carefully

  sprinkles stage blood on the floor,

  making sure she replicates

  the trail of bloodstains

  that appeared in the scene

  as originally filmed.

  She accidentally dribbles

  some of the stage blood on

  her right shoe.

  The camera assistant sees this

  and renames her “Bloodfoot”.

  Everyone laughs.

  the first assistant director

  calls for a second team rehearsal.

  three stand-ins take their places

  on the set.

  two extras playing corpses

  lie down on the floor.

  the script supervisor reminds

  the extras of their

  precise positions

  in the original filming.

  the rehearsal begins.

  the star’s stand-in

  carefully imitating the star’s

  trademark mannerisms)

  enters first.

  He takes photos of

  the two corpses.

  The other two stand-ins,

  playing detectives,

  enter the room and

  eject the star’s stand-in

  after a brief scuffle.

  The first assistant looks

  at the director and the

  cinematographer and asks

  “what did you think?”

  all of them agree that

  the rehearsal was good

  and it’s time to bring in

  the actors-THE FIRST TEAM.

  the first assistant relays

  an order into his headset:

  “We’re ready for a first team

  rehearsal. Bring the star in.”

  the other actors come in first,

  then the star (surrounded by

  personal assistant, hairdresser

  and personal make-up artist)

  makes his entrance.

  the pickup is rehearsed,

  then it is filmed and printed

  in no more than three takes.

  the atmosphere remains relaxed.

  the crew members-

  for all the disharmony,

  occasional firings,

  strategic alliances

  and other tensions that

  took place during the previous

  ten weeks of production-

  are now emotionally equal to

  a group of high school seniors

  taking it easy during

  the final week of school

  before graduation comes

  and everything changes.

  Notes from Employee Below-the-Line

  some colleagues angry and/or exasperated,

  employee fearful of being terminated,

  says nothing else

  sick with fear and anger

  later collapses

  of days of stress and exhaustion.

  a convenient stress reliever

  for coworkers

  tries to upgrade

  his level of competency,

  but mistakes continue.

  “In the school of life,

  I flunked adaptability.”-

  takes day off,

  calls his therapist,

  returns to work

  some coworkers inquiring as to his health;

  others stare bayonets into him.

  visit to office medic

  who got an "A" in adaptablitiy

  makes him determine to adapt

  and stop worrying:

  “What are you going to do, kill me? Everybody dies.”-

  line written by Abraham Polonsky for BODY AND SOUL.

  End this poem

  with a description of the sunrise.

  People love an image

  that’s cathartic-

  like the car being pulled

  out of the swamp

  in the final shot of PSYCHO.

  Metaphor

  put my eggs into a basket

  which used to be sturdy and strong

  but as the years went by

  the basket weakened with age

  and eggs began to fall

  onto the ground

  gathered a few eggs

  and found they stayed intact

  save for a few hairline fractures

  other eggs smashed

  to varying degrees

  on hard concrete

  and couldn't be saved

  especially the ones that

  looked like 24K gold

  but were actually plain old eggs

  with gold-painted shells

  searched for a basket

  to put my remaining eggs in

  and discovered

  they don't make baskets

  anymore

  Learning How To Swim

  This morning, I feel timid.

  I’m standing on the water’s edge,

  watching as you swim towards

  the middle of the ocean.

  You’re a wonderful swimmer.

  I can’t help but admire’

  your proficiency.

  I never learned to swim.

  All I can do is dogpaddle.

  By now, you’re 30 yards from shore.

  you beckon me to leave the

  comfort of dry land

  and join you.

  I give in to your entreaties

  and begin to cautiously

  dogpaddle towards you.

  The ocean becomes rough.

  I feel the undertow.

  I swallow what feels like

  a gallon of saltwater.

  I begin choking.

  I call out to you

  in a frightened voice.

  it looks as if I’ll drown.

  you look at me and smile.

  “don’t give up,” you tell me.

  “I’ll be right there.”

  the water becomes colder.

  I look at you as you swim to me.

  I look at the shore.

  maybe I should swim to safety.

  Before I can act on that thought,

  you’re by my side,

  throwing your arms around

  my neck and giving me

  the most intense kiss of my life.

  at that moment,

  I decide you’re the one.

  there will be no problem,

  no crisis,

  no seemingly insurmountable

  obstacle,

  no storm-tossed sea

  that we can’t face together.

  This Is the News

  Local amusement park hosts stars of network soap operas.

  Cut to informative interviews on how they like visiting

  Southern California.

  Police pursuit (aka car chase) starts in Brentwood

  and ends in Orange.

  Cut to anchors who offer

  clueless coverage of the chase itself.

  There’s a runoff election

  in the San Fernando Valley.

  It’s a boring story-

  let’s show footage of a dog

  eating ice cream instead.

  It’s July sweeps-let’s show off our station’s

  investigative reporting

  by having the $8 million anchor

  harass a drug dealer

  in MacArthur Park.

  A supporting actor on a TV series

  dies of a drug overdose.

  Let’s tease the story by

  withholding his name; maybe

  people will think the star died.

  A talk show legend dies at the age of 79.

  Let’s be outraged over being misled

  into thinking he died at home

  instead of Cedars-Sinai.

  Consumer reporter covers corruption

  at a car dealership in El Monte.

  He’s free to be tough-the dealer doesn’t buy ad time

>   on the station.

  Movie reviewer gushes over

  Summer Blockbuster Sequel

  for almost two minutes.

  He used to be tough-now he loves

  almost everything that’s released.