June 17th, 1994, 10:38:09 p.m.
By Will • Jul 16th, 2009 • Category: ExcerptThis was published in the Illinois English Bulletin (”Best Illinois Poetry & Prose of 1995″), put out by the Illinois Association of Teachers of English in 1996. A couple years later, I adapted it into the script for a single-issue chapbook comic called “Cheap Bullets” (PDF), drawn and lettered by Anon7.
Not long ago, my parents gave me a copy of the issue with this in it, which they’d apparently been holding onto. This poem is now almost as old as I was when I wrote it.
Just now, I went back to read it again, because Wood’s got me thinking of taking up some poetry again (Haiku Year notwithstanding). I include this thing here at Jet Pack as an excerpt of myself, I guess. I’ve resisted the urge to revise the language or spelling.
June 17th, 1994, 10:38:09 p.m.
I was on my way home,
tapping behind 49th Ave.,
prepped for a night of sit-com
boredom and empty phones,
when, or perhaps a moment before,
a pair of grim-clad stereotypes emerged
as though they had been poured
out of a thick fluid from some economy-buy jug,
out of the cardboard, shadow, and crate walls
of one’s junior-high impressions of New York.
One clicked out a ditty
he’d been working on all morning
as the taller one demanded,
with knife in hand and his army of playground strategy,
that I “fork over some green,”
and “quick buddy.”
Actually, it was a switchblade
or more of a butterfly,
like a bayou sidearm or bucknife, bayonet.
When I say bayonet
I mean saber, katana,
six feet of wood with a spear’s head,
a pole-arm or wickedly toothed halberd.
A Tomcat or F-15 Eagle
with ICBM emplacements,
except more like an orbital defense platform
capable of smoking Chicago
and me
if I didn’t produce some bread,
which I did.
Will is a mooncalf and a scalawag. He writes for money and is the co-founder of Gameplaywright Press and Jet Pack.
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I loved Cheap Bullets. I re-read it recently, actually.
(This comment not intended to slight the poem, by the way, which I also like.)
I really like it.
It’s a “punchline poem”, really, one of those poems that sets you up for the killer last line, which would probably make it good for public performance. It certainly stands up as something good, no matter how old you were when you wrote it (and the stuff I wrote when I was a teenager was certainly not as good as this).
Thanks for reading the comic, Jeff. Hopefully there’s more where that came from.
For sure, I am out of practice with the poetry. I used to write it rather a lot, but I stopped because “there was no market for it.” I still read a fair bit of it. Lately, though, I realize that the market for everything is shit, and I like the sheer liquid language of the form, so I should be writing it more. It feels awkward, though, to be worse at it now than I was back when. Things that require practice are funny.
I’m an idiot, I didn’t realize those links were active.
I’m slow.
Anyway. Thing is, I don’t really like poetry. Modern poetry, in particular.
I think I used to, though.
And you guys are starting to remind me why poetry can be awesome, and not… just purple, meandering pap.
So, thanks. Well-done Will, and well-done Wood (re: the poetry on your own site).
– c.