Last Penny Lane Open Reading Poem
while watching The Notebook, The Machinist, The Chronicles Of Ridick and The Day After Tomorrow
chapter 1
another shit day for Trevor:
the scratches burned like fresh meteor strikes
the rented refrigerator inhospitably bleeding
and the wound which had replaced what was
no longer left of his insides, it threw darts
like an empty dinner table, circumstance plotting
against him on a full stomach smoking cigars
in an expensively gutted study
wet bones remember details
love has a real bitch for a mother
and on Sundays she looks just like Joan Allen
naturally the screenplay was flawed, but fuck it
damage will star in the sequel
corny dialog already promised it’s own dressing room
for Trevor, it was obvious
the moon fucks like a pitchfork
this corpse just wasn’t going to heal
chapter 2
that’s why god left us running water
the fact that she never slept with him yet snickered
and yellow post-it notes
and ridiculous bathing suits
and long nights that live on unpaid utility bills
and warm photographs of cheeseburgers,
so often the pickles be damned
the batters box is a myth, the moon whispered
across which slide these all-star daydreams
that he kept regarding the powerful difficulties
involved with reaching her home plate
heartbreak is solar powered and when the sun goes down
runs on the myth of blue shutters and late night movies,
Jennifer Jason Leigh cinema nipples and a complete
preponderance of other meaningless shit
you’ve got a lovely manacle
she sings to him when he’s sleeping
the tune, it seams familiar, like misplacing
your library card at a strip club, the kind of thing
you don�t realize until months later because that’s
about how long it takes things
ain’t it?
to get that one damn Motley Crue song
out of your head
chapter 3
my brain feels like half empty bags of junk food
and un-relayed phone messages
the price of being miserable travels by dogsled
when you’re trying to get thru something
the trying creates cracks and the cracks chunk off
into icebergs and the icebergs melt into incalculable bar tabs
and the bar tabs merge with failed crock pots
and hungry time machines which transport our stomachs wearily
back to the days when grandma tried to save us
w/ pepperoni pizzas & giant hamburgers
i built a raft out of the empty ketchup bottles
the death of ginsberg provided an ocean
made a sail out of old books and my trusty vcr
and beneath the cover of broody movie trailers
with the past screaming things that don’t rhyme w/ bon voyage
i got away
chapter 4
if you look close you’ll see the scars
forged by the plastic cups in which
the pharaohs once made us to piss in
today the ghosts of these misplaced drug tests
lease red convertibles and haunt the deleted chapters
of what things like this used to feel like
the day she almost killed herself playing King Arthur
with a disgruntled milk truck, the way the paint
refuses to dry upon this canvas
of (fuck you/the world needs sappy)
kissing her goodnight
chapter 5
your lungs are like radio
& i must’ve swallowed the dial
because now the only station i get
is the sound of you sleeping
and as for the commercials:
you’re totally missing the part
where Vin Diesel gets schooled
by Tootie’s granddaughter
the facts of life ain’t diggin his sci fi
but the furian is smarter than all that
in this life shackles are just the price of doing bid-ness
it’s the angle of approach you’ve got to worry about
it’s those landings you walk away from
the good morning sunshines that feed the toasters
the breakfasts involving midnight pancakes
smothered with i’m fucking you now but i’ve got
a fiancee waiting for me in a tie somewhere syrup
that’s got these mercs working overtime
there’s been a bounty placed on love’s head
you’re totally wanted throughout the galaxy
i know
these pillows have served time in seven parsecs
but don’t worry
i’ll watch your ass
(written for the last open mic poetry reading at the Penny Lane coffee shop, Boulder CO)
Multiverse Johnson 