DON’T TAKE CHANCES WITH ROMANCES
In 1963, George Harrison sang: “She’s Got The Devil In Her Heart” and then “NO NO NO” and then “This I can’t believe.”
It was a terrible thing to say because there were millions and millions of girls who loved George Harrison so much so terribly much that they cried and fainted and asked themselves, Could he be talking about me? Secretly they wanted for George Harrison to say anything at all about them so they could faint and pee all over the dance floor when they fainted and their muscles relaxed even if it meant that George Harrison was saying that they had the devil in their hearts, no no no and that he couldn’t believe it.
It would have been so much better if he had simply said Judith or Cindy or Patty or Jill Has The Devil In Her Heart No No No so fewer girls would think that they had the devils in their heart woe woe woe and just the one guilty one would and then she would turn herself into the authorities, or as the English would say, bobbies.
Now all those girls are really old and on respirators and never think about George Harrison. I bet one was a murderer and got away with it. A long time ago. In love with George Harrison and killing people. She probably burned the house down while innocent people were sleeping peacefully inside. What a terrible person she was. Well, what can you do. She loved George Harrrison. And she really did have the devil in her heart no no etc.
I always thought George Harrison was very perceptive, and also very spiritual. I just wish that once he had taken the law into his own hand, rather than sing all the time, for the sake of everybody but that one terrible person whose name probably isn’t even Judith, or Patty or Jill–Cindy is an excellent choice of names. It was probably Cindy. Surely, with a name like Cindy, you would fall in love with fire and screaming and murder.
Yes, in a world of tragedy, George Harrison definitely had it going on!
- Ricky Garni
(featured in the poetry forum 09.04.10)
THE ATTACK OF THE 50 FT WOMAN
I am not sure how someone
came up with this idea but
it is brilliant.
I have no reason to believe
that the man who imagined it
did so while reading sad letters–
many of them–but I have
no reason to believe he wasn’t.
You may say: “Perhaps a woman
wrote it.” Cautiously, I would reply,
“I have no reason to believe so” and
then would interrupt myself to say:
”No, she didn’t.”
Who is she?
The woman who didn’t write the screenplay
for ATTACK OF THE 50 FT WOMAN.
I would very much like to meet her.
Meanwhile, the other woman, this 50 ft. woman,
is apparently very angry at her husband who is
committing hanky panky left right and center
and she is determined to find him and take him
in one of her huge hands and crush his whole
body like a walnut.
I believe that the trailer even shows a picture
of him, dressed nicely in a suit, in her hand,
squirming. You can almost feel the anticipation,
which is delicious.
The walnut part I added myself. I tried
to crush one years ago during a strange
and interesting flight of fancy but it only
left a reddish impression in the palm of
my hand and little aching in my fingers;
I felt foolish and alone.
Later that night, and far away,
I dreamt that I was living
in Babylon and listening to Marduk
the short-tempered god of Babylon
talking on and on about floods. “Then
I will make this flood” and “Then I
will make that flood” until I fall asleep
in my dream and wake up and see
That I am right in front of the TV and
there is the 50 ft woman in front of me.
It’s just as well that she’s there.
We live in a society today that would
not honor or respect a 50 ft woman,
who, once upon a time, would have
been likened to a god. It’s all in
the dream.
Even though the 50 ft woman was
made fifty years ago, truthfully, they
didn’t care for her much even then.
They liked things like spoon bread.
And 5 cent cigars. Not fifty foot women.
And there was only one of them.
My doctor says: “You must learn
to stop romanticizing. It is bad for
the internal organs.”
Still, someday I will leave this world
without a word and go to a special
place that would embrace the 50 ft
woman, even if she is attacking
something. I am certain that it would
be unlike any place that I have ever
imagined, although I do imagine
That there would be palm trees but
no, no, it would not be Babylon.
There would be walnuts, in abundance,
and a bed of grass in which to sleep.
There would be more than enough
room for everybody, scoundrels
would be there, and hope would
Flourish, and televisions would
work miracles as they often do
And the grass would stretch out before
you, or me, for much much more than
just fifty feet.
June, 2003
- Ricky Garni
(featured in the poetry forum 06.11.09)
I FEEL SO MUCH
But I don’t do
a thing about it.
I just write about
other things I don’t
feel anything about.
Like the bug
in the air vent,
and it’s dead.
Probably starved
to death.
But if it hadn’t,
I bet it wouldn’t
be writing about
someone writing
about bugs with
a black leaky pen
pondering death
in a bathtub
looking at a bug
that’s probably
dead already.
I bet it would be
writing about its
soon to be famous
escape from the
air vent.
I mean, once it was
all done, and he had
scampered away,
and was safe and warm,
at home, with his books,
writing materials,
and his loving wife,
cooking something that’s
tasty not to you or me,
but to bugs.
- Ricky Garni
(featured in the poetry forum 12.26.08)
WHAT TO MENTION TO YOUR PARENTS
I haven’t thought about urinating
on a tree in years.
Today as I stood on top of the mountain
I looked down into the weathered red valleys
and forests and serpentine streets
with tiny cars going everywhere
betwixt all of those places that
I love too much
“To urinate on a tree,” I thought to myself,
“I would have to jump off this mountain
and into the forest filled with trees
carefully, avoiding all the cars
going everywhere, here and there”
Jumping off mountains, as a thought,
occurs to me much more often
Unlike urinating on a tree,
once you think about jumping off a
mountain you feel dizzy and weightless
and somewhat giddy
Urinating, though, or thoughts of
urinating, are relatively mild
and fleeting thoughts, provoking
no giddy feelings, conjuring nothing
other than the sensation of
urinating
It is what I might call
a “C+ thought.”
Average, respectable, but nothing to
consider often, or to ponder in a
scholar’s way, or worth mentioning
to parents
Mountain jumping, though?
“B+.”
Falling in Love: “A-”
Buying Your First Car: “B”
Getting Slapped By
a French Teacher for
Mispronouncing ‘La Vache’: “B-”
Landing on a Cow After
a Terrific Jump off a Mountain
in France: “A+”
Tell your parents!
- Ricky Garni
(added 12.26.08)
REP
I have a hankering for a ‘rep’ tie.
I have enjoyed saying the words ‘rep’ tie for thirty years now and you know what? I do not know what the hell it means!
Please, let me clarify: I know what it is–it’s a brightly colored, single colored tie with thin diagonal black stripes.
But what does it mean?
I do not know.
It could stand for ‘republican’ but that is unlikely because the colors are traditional a vivid, sex organ hue.
It could mean ‘representational’ because it does represent a series of diagonal black stripes on a colorful background–it is not abstract!
Or it could suggest ‘repartee’ - because ‘rep’ ties are fun to talk about in repartee fashion, except in France, in the days of the 19th century salons–where a misplaced, flaccid or boorish bon mots would earn you a one-way trip to the guillotine!
It could even be a tie of repose. The diagonal lines could be water slides that lead the wearer into a pool of warm contentment while the tie itself remains right where it is.
You know what?
I could speculate about the meaning of the ‘rep’ tie until I got married and got a divorce or better yet, had a heart attack while playing in the garden in the backyard with my grandson, but why should I? Thirty years of not knowing what (the hell) a ‘rep’ tie truly means hasn’t prevented those years from being thirty of the happiest years of my life. Why, just last week for instance, I went fishing and caught a fish with bulging eyes and whiskers. And just before that, I began to think about ‘rep’ ties the way some people think about sex – all day long!
Which reminds me: if I didn’t know what sex was I would have to put quotation marks around it like this: the ‘sex’ act.
If I had used the word ‘sex’ for thirty years and knew what it was but not what it meant, would those have been equally happy years to the years that I knew?
Of course they would. Or were. What I am trying to say is, I really don’t know what sex means, although I do know what it is.
Sometimes I wish you could see me here–lying on the floor naked, wearing a ‘rep’ tie around my waist and staring at the unusual manequins in the shopping carts at the grocery store across the street.
It looks like one of them just moved.
- Ricky Garni
(added 12.26.08) |
