Thirty-Eighth Entry

anyways.....

here's my poem:

COLOR TV

Here is what I’m going to do.
I will pluck the green leaves from
the yard and place them randomly
in the grass. I will force
everyone to believe it’s autumn.
I will correct them and say
that it’s indian summer, and
I’ll think of distant braves
retreating into the woods
to melt into mulch, I guess,
or sleep in some cave where radios
will never find them, and I’ve bought
two ladders and a pair of gloves
and the neighbor’s boy said he would help.

My shirt is tucked into my shorts.
I mow the lawn. Slick and shiny
cadillacs buzz through like muted beasts.
The distant dog barks sound trapped,
like Laika wrapped in foil on re-entry
I imagine. Even my father called
to tell me he suspects I am a Communist
but really I’m actually quiet.
My lawn chair beams like a brand new smile.
Often I think about sitting in it
and sipping the kid’s juice, dozing
like a warm piece of meat, hearing
Lorraine call me inside for watermelon,
but my providence prevents me from
such idle joys, and summer keeps
so morbid and so long.

If I shouted in the den would it
be heard even in the empty bedroom?
If I threw the dinette set to the floor
where would I go? My daughters
and their husbands bought me a color
TV. They’ve told me to watch the screen
and drink a beer, which I’ve tried
to construct in my mind as a normal
and harmless thing to do, and
it’s flatly unconscionable.

For Jack Benny’s face should never
be that peach, and Lucy and Desi’s
house makes my straining, horrified
eyes twitch with its manic color scheme.
I want the trees to go ahead and give
up, I want the trunks to stoop
like old men’s spines, I want the static
on the screen to have no sound,
the hissing is disturbing my sleep
but I’m too tired to stand up
and turn the dial.