Poems of the Day 10.31.08

an old poem, but fitting (kind of) for today

one scary movie

the movie wasn’t so great.
it had a lot of tricks to try
and make you think that it was
shocking and intelligent
but any fool could’ve figured it out
and the gore was a little too false,
the characters didn’t suffer enough
to satisfy me.
in fact, i spent most of the evening
trying to figure out what kind of
idiot pays good money to see a film
like this.
but then again, most people are dumb
and hadn’t i paid to see this
piece of cinematic shit too?
after the film, ally turned off the dvd
and we sat in silence for a while,
finishing our cheap chilean wine

“well, what did you think?”
she asked.
“i didn’t like it, “ i answered.
“it wasn’t scary. if they really
wanted to make a horror film
they should’ve made a movie about
a guy forced to work overtime,
or one about a maniac stuck in traffic,
or a film about a single mother trying
to pay the gas bill in the dead of winter.
now that shit would be scary. but
hollywood doesn’t make horror
films like those.”

ally said nothing and we had
another glass of wine, then got
ready for bed.
but before i shut the light off
i grabbed the movie out of the dvd player
and made sure to put it back in its case.
i didn’t want it to be late.
there was no point in paying for our
failure
twice.


good will

we put the pants
and shirts aside
the larges for roger
who’s in a wheelchair
and looks about thirty years
younger than anyone in this place.
the mediums we are giving to robert
who keeps standing
in the doorway
crying and talking about
world war ii
or maybe he’s crying
over my grandfather
but none of us can tell.
we can’t find anyone who
will fit the shoes
so they stay in the corner
with a box holding
his old zippo lighter
old lottery calendars
and a pack of luckies
colored green from the war.
my father takes the swiss army knife
we bought for pap almost
twenty years ago at cooks forest.
i take some hats and a jacket.
we take the last
of bud’s beers out of his
mini refrigerator
an i.c. light and two genny cream ales
unplug it and then we drink
them as we put aside
his photographs
the heart monitor
the packages of depends
the digital alarm with numbers
big enough for him to read
and take down his clock.
my mother unplugs two lamps
and puts a box of things aside
for my uncle to look at
when he gets here from shaler
and nobody can think of what
to do with the powder blue
recliner sitting in the middle
of the room
so the old age home worker
who has been lingering around
eyeing all this stuff, says her son will
take it
and he’s here before we can say
yes or no
so we all vacate the room
and watch with dumb smiles as the kid
hoists the chair onto a dolly
and wheels it away.
paula’s getting the plant that has been
growing for twelve years
since my grandmother died
and someone is coming to get
the stand that stayed in my grandparent’s
living room
all forty-nine years of their marriage.
there was a blue blanket
somewhere around here.
it had red and white and yellow stripes
going across the thing
but none of us can find it
so we shut the lights off
and leave the room idle for someone else.
if you see it, maybe you could give it
to dave who is just down the hall
who says he’s cold all of the time.