BROWSE Columns
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First, from the elegant Online Exclusives
menu, gimme a twist-cap-to-go bottle of
Tips for Getting Out of Flight Mode as I know
more straw-sucked Diet Coke won’t help
as it’ll keep my BP & electric skin RPMs
redlined, but it tastes just so dang festive,
& these dang escargot sweats don’t have
an off switch, but it’s still worth wearing
the collared shirt I look best in, isn’t it?
[Checks hair part in the rearview mirror.]
Do I belong in this lane? Does anyone? It’s
almost always easier to believe what you
already think than it is to change your mind,
but come on, light, aesthetic, season, epoch...
change. Please. Maybe drive off to the museum,
next? A symphony in your earbuds, gentle rain
on the plant-covered patio, the remnants
of culture in carefully curated plexiglass
boxes on pedestals, cameras & heat-sensitive
pressure sensors keeping a careful watch,
& we’ll need a taut but supple nighttime
acrobat to navigate the invisible indivisible
lasers protecting the immortality via
objectification, an entire civilization
reduced to they made this, so we’ll choose
to remember only them & maybe stop being
so quick to place people on said pedestals,
mythmaking at its carved marble worst.
Will people’s need for mysteries & legends
ever allow them to fully accept reality?
Maybe we should check the victor’s
Language Arts grades & ethical sensibilities
before we allow him to write all the history?
Where’s a gruntled adjunct professor when
you need one? He may have made cool stuff,
but he, like Ty Cobb or Robert Bleeping Frost,
was a prick to everyone in his life, sacrificing
a life well-lived for suspect fame afterwards,
as if anyone’s goal in life is to end up under
glass in The Natural History Museum instead
of The Museum of Awful Drive Thru Poetry,
as if curating I do this, I do that is a less than
reputable career. When exactly did this
airy cloche morph into impermeable
Museum World? One friend a thief,
the other a Ben Stiller lookalike ersatz
security guard. Another friend’s nickname
is Number Two because of his love of Ohio’s
Pencil Museum. Erase, blow away the pink
shavings, & graphite-scratch-in that
it’s actually a Pencil Sharpener Museum
that he adores—better to be the honer
than the honed. Besides, I don’t know
where the actual Pencil Museum is, despite
the ease of Googling, just as I can know
where the Peanut Butter Museum is (PA)
without desperately needing to know
where the Jelly Museum is, though I do
admire his sticktoitiveness, even if it’s his
poetry I can’t shake loose from the roof of
my mouth. Of course, there must be one—
another mouth to feed or another fulcrum
for the teetertotter—as we always want
balance, a neatness to spousal condiments,
as we’re exceedingly uncomfortable
with aloneness, with lack of explanation,
but then again, maybe we’re all too content
with the banality of elitism, the suck of
a lemon. Y’all got those warm chocolate
& cinnamon-sugar sprinkled churros
on the menu yet?
Bob is a Professor of English at Kent State University at Stark. His poetry collection And & And is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. Recent nominations include 3 for Pushcart Prizes (from LEON Literary Review, The Hooghly Review, & Paddler Press) & 2 for Best of the Net Anthology (from Blue Flame Review & The Gorko Gazette). He lives in Fairview Park, Ohio, with his wife & daughters.
