(note: a Grant = a $50 bill)
Rock Star Parking
In front of a club.
Between No Parking signs. Visiting
rivals. Wishing I sat
in the back of a Rolls,
and could wait as long as it took
my chauffeur to get out,
walk around, open my door,
and fucking salute, why not.
Instead it’s a Porsche
I think (who cares?), and
I spring the door an inch,
then pause for as long
as it takes them to think
(they can’t see) I’m deciding
whether to drive away,
making a call, powdering
my nose. But it isn’t
drugs that give me
this high. Or music, the band, losers
almost as loved as I,
inside. Or the girls, screaming
as if in childbirth, straining at the rope
to be born in my gaze. I find
them touching. If you’re stupid enough
you’re touching, if you’re touched enough
it’s love. A loser
belonging to the club
steps forward for the car.
He’s old, gnarled, horrible, rotting.
I slip him a Grant, and might be so scared
that I can’t meet his eye,
but he isn’t death so why should I?
Nightlight
The old archaeologist was silent
as they cleared the last of the rubble
from the Door (which was, needless to say,
of an unknown metal) and babbled.
He was silent as they opened it
or rather watched it open, tested
the impossibly fresh air, gazed
at the lights that had just come on
or had been on forever.
He strode ahead of them, down
the Corridor, scowling at ideograms
and trying to bounce ideas off
the linguist, as the others, one by one,
fell silent. *Do you think they’re *behind
Shang script, or Sumerian?
People always think there’s something
‘behind’ what they themselves
accomplish.* And as they entered
the Chamber, his remarks became constant
and grating. *The collective imagination
is cheesy*, he said.
*At best it could be edited,
made ashamed of itself. Now, I guess,
it won’t be.* He barely
glanced at the glowing crystal sarcophagus,
and of the form within he only
noted that it was male. Didn’t care
if it was a beautiful youth or some
impossibly wise geezer. *A woman, now -
that might have been a slightly more interesting
archetype.* An assistant
agreed, with the part of her mind
not absorbed in the lid rising
as anticlimax began.
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