somedays I feel my shadow is casting me


Hank Willis Thomas, I am a Man, 2009

Bonus Monday Poem:

Please Don't Queer My Redenbacher Moment
-- by Denis Mahagin

Somehow, the dad who sired
our media hoax, all robust
and doe-eyed,
reminded one

of a young John Irving in the absolute
prime of a shit storm ;

and the Sheriff? Hell, a portly
Lithgow was he, and wouldn't let it
go, he said, histrionically "oh, well
folks, you know we do get these wing
nuts from time to
time, to time ..."

Ah, but
the Balloon
itself!

Pure sublime
tinsel fodder and centrifugal
force, a cobra-headed gyro
scope, mad Beatnik hover-
craft spinning,

spanning the rocky
steppes, when I

first caught whiff, on my T Mobile with
Google, simply could not help thinking
of John Denver on a bender, remote

joystick clutched in fish white
fingers, pie-eyed and
cackling

wired tight as banjo
strings in the stratos, "GO, BALLOON
BOY, GO! GO! GO! ... " we bellowed
and high fived, half a billion
strong surfers who live only
for the cantilevered,
tethers windblown,
for the CNN Kafka-

esque and just
plain wrong. It's said,
mister Garp
likes a little wife
swap on

the side, sold tall ones over
water cooler to the Doomsday
Mayans, and really,

where's the harm, where's the harm
in a little Jiffy Pop? Some hide and
seek, trailer
of the week?

I've been feeling so
peaked, at the eye
of a claw foot
gyre,

Lithgow up and busts
a Liar, hatpin in the micro-
wave, but me, I'm bound
to belch deep

green bong water,
weakly crying

"lift off ..."

We only
wanted it

to go higher.

* He's right, no doubt.

* “If Frank O’Hara and D. Boon share a lesson for me, it’s that you don’t need a reason to make art other than to delight your friends.” -- Dobby Gibson