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Elliot Harmon 2 POEMS |
from MISSION STREET CYCLE 1 Imperceptibly, gradually, DVDs. Yet something remains, something Laura has just been named assistant carries fifty bobbing-head deerhounds. The dogs
Though most shops along Mission don't have names, backpacks, lined-up, creating the fourth wall and/or Jesus, looking peaceful, to Mary, though I found her reassuring. Sometimes after dark I come to watch
I said the words "low-grade lymphoma" to
myself they complicate. I went to Bluegrass Night unopened. Sometimes instead I open
SUMMER OF THE PTERODACTYL
In 1981, Midway Games hired John, a man who knew nothing
about video games. far smaller than one of those floppy disks that didn't
exist yet in the summer before I started high school, when everyone
I knew was invisible A buzzard speared my ostrich and I yelled out, "You
killed Kenny!" playing Ms. Pac-Man. Five seconds later he was out
the door trying not to think, leaving her to deal with the ghosts
alone. the next in a series. what happens? The town gave up, drove cars, filed reports, walked along Capitol Lake
throwing bread When it began, there were counselors brought into the
school about grief. In five months after girls' basketball and before chicken fried steak. the spiritual revival, teachers allowing us to retake
tests. the town had found a cure. "We need to quit messing
around," "We need to go down to the Middle School and tell
them to cut it out who has run out of ideas and only anger remains The voice of a boy who went to all his younger sister's
field hockey games a boy who sweats profusely from his forehead when he's
angry and other things. and sitting on the curb outside watching a stray dog
yap at everyone walk by The thing about Joust is that you can't kill the buzzards; carries an egg that will hatch into All we knew was loneliness. was always listed just under mine, about teenage depression, this is the corner You're listening to an announcer listening to Sean explain That's what the instructions call it: Unbeatable? and the bird will fly right into your sword, and you
can play forever. its path crosses one point, so you wait there for it
to come to you When John learned about the problem, he was embarrassed, a weak match for the persistence By his own admission, he's an obsessive creator. at Midway, taking naps on the lobby couch, long after the Galaga designers have given up and gone
to bed and can you imagine him and can you imagine me learning that the guy who beat
me up One wanted to go listening to his new Marilyn Manson
CD on headphones, in the newspaper story, the way that only newspapers can mistake the background music outside the arcade not saying anything. Someone would
hold up a newspaper, How many times, we wondered, could the word "sickness" And then it ended. Today is my twenty-fourth birthday The drawing is shaded obsessively, but with obsessive
love. while the knight looks up at the pterodactyl—frightened, a question. "Where the hell did you get this?"
I ask in awe. I prop it on the windowsill—it's early evening
and everything is glowing. in silence ____ on MISSION STREET CYCLE: Mission Street Cycle was like line-writing boot camp for me. Collect all 13. They're dedicated to my mom. on SUMMER OF THE PTERODACTYL: This poem is about the town where I grew up, but some details are changed. I got the biographical details about John Newcomer from the interviews in Midway Arcade Classics. |