Taking the Kids for Pizza
I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound
thoughtful or sad, but you make
me thoughtful and sad and I think
that is good. What other reaction
so fits the world?
If we take your kids for pizza is it not
natural that I should think about evolution?
When I follow your daughter toward games
that shine like harbor lights, should I not wonder
at the tensile strength of life, so fragile and tough?
I know I think too much and talk
too much, like that douchebag
in Dover Beach. But it’s how I am.
I think now, as I watch your girl point
at a plastic fish, that I’m ok with it.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Saturday, March 8, 2008
My Atomic Love For You Draft iii
The Berlin wall was torn down a few weeks before my eighteenth birthday. I can still remember the news footage of jubilant West Berliners tearing the wall down, some of them with nothing but their own hands. It was a joyful time. The cold war was over. It was finally over. This event made me sad and I feel that I should try to account for my reaction, since it was not typical.
In the early nineteen eighties, at the same time that I first discovered girls, I saw a lot of movies and television specials depicting the effects of nuclear war. Adults, it seemed, were concerned about Reagan’s tough talk and defense spending, and Hollywood was tapping in on the prevailing mindset.
When The Day After was broadcast on November 20, nineteen eighty three, it was a nation wide event. Across the country, families gathered around their television sets and watched as the United States duked it out with the U.S.S.R. Even my hyperactive step brothers sat still to watch Jason Robards and Steve Guttenberg slowly die of radiation poisoning. The Wagnerian scope of the devastation in this movie was just the thing to captivate an imaginative and introverted twelve year old. I had already learned, from my parents’ divorce that the world could change. It was only a small step in my mind to picture the world being destroyed in a brilliant white flash.
If you have ever seen The Day After, you will know what I’m talking about. In fact, almost every movie about nuclear war (and I have seen most of them) contains a scene where the screen goes white. This technique is probably used to its greatest effect in the film, Testament, where, in order to simulate a nuclear attack without using special effects, the director had the screen fade to white while Jane Alexander and her kids hide in the corner. When the camera fades back in, the old world is gone, and everything is different.
The point of the white was to simulate the intense flash of a nuclear warhead going off, but to me it was something more. It was an intervention; it was a moment of grace. There would be a heat so intense that it would block out everything. There would be a white intensity that you would feel coursing through your body. You would become sanctified, purified by the white fire that burned away your past and left you feeling new and reborn. The former world would have passed away and a new Earth would be yours to inhabit. It was like having sex, or so I imagined at the time.
I thought about sex a lot when I was thirteen and atomic destruction played a prominent role in my nacient fantasies. These fantasies would often include a fallout shelter or a submarine escape pod (for I was very interested in submarines at the time. I assume that all seventh grade boys are). The only two survivors of the holocaust would be myself and a girl named Rene, who had the desk in front of mine in language arts class. Rene was a pretty blonde who had a way of inclining her head and looking at you from underneath her bangs. I was deeply in love with her in the way only a seventh grade boy can be. Rene did not notice me. She was attracted to an athletic kid named Bobbie.
In order to avoid the nuclear attack, we would have left in such a hurry that Rene would have nothing to wear except for a matching set of pink bra and panties. She would sulk around the submarine in this outfit and treat me badly at first. Slowly, it would sink in that her handsome athlete, Bobbie, had been burnt to a cinder along with everyone else. She would finally warm up to me and we would kiss on deck. It would be a deep soul kiss, with the moon shining over the South Pacific, much like the couples would do on an episode of The Love Boat.
Eventually we would reach an island. The island would be a heaven on Earth. There would be blue-green waves crashing on a white sandy beach. There would be palm trees. Beyond the beach there would be a dark jungle that was lush with a wild and beastly life. There would be colorful birds. The air would be clean and free from contamination. We wouldn’t need our submarine any longer. My beautiful blonde lover and I would clime out through the conning tower and embrace in the warm, salty air. Then we would walk up the beach, hand in hand, ready to repopulate our brave new world. Of course that is not how things ultimately turned out. There never was a nuclear war and I certainly did not have a submarine. i never found out whether or not Rene had pink panties.
A couple of years later, when I was in high school, I crossed paths with her at a party. It was new year’s eve Nineteen Eighty Nine. She was stoned and I was pretty drunk. We said hi and made small talk for a few minutes. I thought about telling her the story of my fantasy and asking her whether or not she had pink underwear. I decided not to. I didn’t really know her very well and I was afraid that if anyone heard me asking her about her panties, I would get beat to t pulp by a gang of jocks. So I just told her happy new year and moved on. Eventually we all counted down from ten and cheered. It was Nineteen Ninety. I drove to Denny’s. I sobered up. I drove home.
It was some time after this time, the following October, when I heard that the Berlin wall had come down. I don’t really know if the cold war was over right then, but that was the prevailing zeitgeist in the autumn of my senior year. The Soviet Union was collapsing very quickly. East and West Germany had been unified. Poland would probably be next. There would be peace, and there would be a peace dividend.
The end of the U.S.S.R. seemed somewhat less important to me because I had lost my virginity just a week before and I was largely preoccupied with replaying this event in my memory. I suppose I was trying to figure out how it happened. Who am I kidding? I was a seventeen year old American male. It was bound to happen sooner or later, and it was a pleasure to recall the event. It was exciting to know that I had beaten most of my friends in the race to get laid.
The girl with whom I lost it didn’t have pink panties, as far as I could tell. It was dark. There had been no white flash, no moment of grace or sanctification. There had only been a slight going away for a moment, and a slight returning. The girl (a curvy brunette named Jeanine who I would go steady with a year later) hadn’t even had an orgasm as far as I could tell.
And now there would be no thermonuclear flash either. There would be no atomic destruction, no need to escape and repopulate the planet. It was a new beginning, but not one that was particularly brave or hopeful. There would only be graduation, then a job (or college and a job), marriage, kids, then a slow diminishment, retirement, death. I thought about the children I would probably have someday. They would go through the same experiences I had gone through. Then I thought about their children and the children of those children. Just living their lives. Trying to get laid and dreaming of something they can’t quite define. And on into infinity, where all colors run and fade into the pure and sanctified white background of the universe.
In the early nineteen eighties, at the same time that I first discovered girls, I saw a lot of movies and television specials depicting the effects of nuclear war. Adults, it seemed, were concerned about Reagan’s tough talk and defense spending, and Hollywood was tapping in on the prevailing mindset.
When The Day After was broadcast on November 20, nineteen eighty three, it was a nation wide event. Across the country, families gathered around their television sets and watched as the United States duked it out with the U.S.S.R. Even my hyperactive step brothers sat still to watch Jason Robards and Steve Guttenberg slowly die of radiation poisoning. The Wagnerian scope of the devastation in this movie was just the thing to captivate an imaginative and introverted twelve year old. I had already learned, from my parents’ divorce that the world could change. It was only a small step in my mind to picture the world being destroyed in a brilliant white flash.
If you have ever seen The Day After, you will know what I’m talking about. In fact, almost every movie about nuclear war (and I have seen most of them) contains a scene where the screen goes white. This technique is probably used to its greatest effect in the film, Testament, where, in order to simulate a nuclear attack without using special effects, the director had the screen fade to white while Jane Alexander and her kids hide in the corner. When the camera fades back in, the old world is gone, and everything is different.
The point of the white was to simulate the intense flash of a nuclear warhead going off, but to me it was something more. It was an intervention; it was a moment of grace. There would be a heat so intense that it would block out everything. There would be a white intensity that you would feel coursing through your body. You would become sanctified, purified by the white fire that burned away your past and left you feeling new and reborn. The former world would have passed away and a new Earth would be yours to inhabit. It was like having sex, or so I imagined at the time.
I thought about sex a lot when I was thirteen and atomic destruction played a prominent role in my nacient fantasies. These fantasies would often include a fallout shelter or a submarine escape pod (for I was very interested in submarines at the time. I assume that all seventh grade boys are). The only two survivors of the holocaust would be myself and a girl named Rene, who had the desk in front of mine in language arts class. Rene was a pretty blonde who had a way of inclining her head and looking at you from underneath her bangs. I was deeply in love with her in the way only a seventh grade boy can be. Rene did not notice me. She was attracted to an athletic kid named Bobbie.
In order to avoid the nuclear attack, we would have left in such a hurry that Rene would have nothing to wear except for a matching set of pink bra and panties. She would sulk around the submarine in this outfit and treat me badly at first. Slowly, it would sink in that her handsome athlete, Bobbie, had been burnt to a cinder along with everyone else. She would finally warm up to me and we would kiss on deck. It would be a deep soul kiss, with the moon shining over the South Pacific, much like the couples would do on an episode of The Love Boat.
Eventually we would reach an island. The island would be a heaven on Earth. There would be blue-green waves crashing on a white sandy beach. There would be palm trees. Beyond the beach there would be a dark jungle that was lush with a wild and beastly life. There would be colorful birds. The air would be clean and free from contamination. We wouldn’t need our submarine any longer. My beautiful blonde lover and I would clime out through the conning tower and embrace in the warm, salty air. Then we would walk up the beach, hand in hand, ready to repopulate our brave new world. Of course that is not how things ultimately turned out. There never was a nuclear war and I certainly did not have a submarine. i never found out whether or not Rene had pink panties.
A couple of years later, when I was in high school, I crossed paths with her at a party. It was new year’s eve Nineteen Eighty Nine. She was stoned and I was pretty drunk. We said hi and made small talk for a few minutes. I thought about telling her the story of my fantasy and asking her whether or not she had pink underwear. I decided not to. I didn’t really know her very well and I was afraid that if anyone heard me asking her about her panties, I would get beat to t pulp by a gang of jocks. So I just told her happy new year and moved on. Eventually we all counted down from ten and cheered. It was Nineteen Ninety. I drove to Denny’s. I sobered up. I drove home.
It was some time after this time, the following October, when I heard that the Berlin wall had come down. I don’t really know if the cold war was over right then, but that was the prevailing zeitgeist in the autumn of my senior year. The Soviet Union was collapsing very quickly. East and West Germany had been unified. Poland would probably be next. There would be peace, and there would be a peace dividend.
The end of the U.S.S.R. seemed somewhat less important to me because I had lost my virginity just a week before and I was largely preoccupied with replaying this event in my memory. I suppose I was trying to figure out how it happened. Who am I kidding? I was a seventeen year old American male. It was bound to happen sooner or later, and it was a pleasure to recall the event. It was exciting to know that I had beaten most of my friends in the race to get laid.
The girl with whom I lost it didn’t have pink panties, as far as I could tell. It was dark. There had been no white flash, no moment of grace or sanctification. There had only been a slight going away for a moment, and a slight returning. The girl (a curvy brunette named Jeanine who I would go steady with a year later) hadn’t even had an orgasm as far as I could tell.
And now there would be no thermonuclear flash either. There would be no atomic destruction, no need to escape and repopulate the planet. It was a new beginning, but not one that was particularly brave or hopeful. There would only be graduation, then a job (or college and a job), marriage, kids, then a slow diminishment, retirement, death. I thought about the children I would probably have someday. They would go through the same experiences I had gone through. Then I thought about their children and the children of those children. Just living their lives. Trying to get laid and dreaming of something they can’t quite define. And on into infinity, where all colors run and fade into the pure and sanctified white background of the universe.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
A Rhetoric for Lovers
This poem needs some work. But I kind of like it so far.
A Rhetoric for Lovers
Proemium
This evening I want to call you and hear
you tell me about the small things
that happened in your day. I fail
to see why I shouldn’t, but as yet
I have not picked up the phone.
Diegesis
I mean, we know each other well enough
after a few dates that I really shouldn’t
worry about it. If you don’t
want to go out, you won’t go out.
But love is so hard these days
and so easy to scare someone away.
Pistis
I should like to point out to you
that I think we would both find
a night spent together to be
both good and advantageous;
though I suppose that this fact
will have to be taken on trust.
Erotesis
What is the point, my love,
when strangers are making it
in dark corners, and troubled
youths are fingering their triggers,
and suicide bombers are wrapping
themselves in the dark, secret
love of their righteous death,
of the two of us sleeping alone?
Epilogos
So i hope that when you hear
your phone ring, you will
pick it up, and tell me how to
know you. Although, as yet,
I have not dialed your number.
~Fouts
A Rhetoric for Lovers
Proemium
This evening I want to call you and hear
you tell me about the small things
that happened in your day. I fail
to see why I shouldn’t, but as yet
I have not picked up the phone.
Diegesis
I mean, we know each other well enough
after a few dates that I really shouldn’t
worry about it. If you don’t
want to go out, you won’t go out.
But love is so hard these days
and so easy to scare someone away.
Pistis
I should like to point out to you
that I think we would both find
a night spent together to be
both good and advantageous;
though I suppose that this fact
will have to be taken on trust.
Erotesis
What is the point, my love,
when strangers are making it
in dark corners, and troubled
youths are fingering their triggers,
and suicide bombers are wrapping
themselves in the dark, secret
love of their righteous death,
of the two of us sleeping alone?
Epilogos
So i hope that when you hear
your phone ring, you will
pick it up, and tell me how to
know you. Although, as yet,
I have not dialed your number.
~Fouts
Mold-A-Rama
Last weekend I went to the zoo with some very lovely ladies. It was nice to have a date. It was nice to see the animals. But those of you who have been to Brookfield Zoo all know what the real attraction is. Of course I’m talking about the Mold-A-Rama machines.
The Mold-A-Rama is a cool old machine that makes little plastic statues while you stand there and watch it happen. I don’t think that I can accurately convey the joy that one of these machines can bring to the human heart. You put your money in. You press the button and watch as the hydraulic mechanism pushes the two halves of the mold together. The machine makes a whirring sound. The air is filled with a cloying scent as the molten plastic is injected in
to the mold. After about three quarters of a minute, the mold separates and your beautiful Mold-A-Rama sculpture is dropped into the tray where you can retrieve it, still hot, into your own hands.
Many things in life turn out to be less than promised. But the Mold-A-Rama has never failed to make my heart sing with the pure, clean, joy of melted plastic.
The Mold-A-Rama is a cool old machine that makes little plastic statues while you stand there and watch it happen. I don’t think that I can accurately convey the joy that one of these machines can bring to the human heart. You put your money in. You press the button and watch as the hydraulic mechanism pushes the two halves of the mold together. The machine makes a whirring sound. The air is filled with a cloying scent as the molten plastic is injected in
to the mold. After about three quarters of a minute, the mold separates and your beautiful Mold-A-Rama sculpture is dropped into the tray where you can retrieve it, still hot, into your own hands.Many things in life turn out to be less than promised. But the Mold-A-Rama has never failed to make my heart sing with the pure, clean, joy of melted plastic.
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