Scansion

The blue-lit letters of Jordan Marsh

and the several hunchbacked parking lot lights

drone on into the night like common knowledge

as I pretend to converse

into the payphone

I'm crunched down

against November's thorough chill

reciting my new poetry

into Ma Bell's buzz

pretending each honeycomb hole in the receiver

is a little, faithful ear

that I have to fill

with sweet, easy honey

I say things like:

his goat-gray hair | floats in the breeze | like fastened curls of smoke

or something like that

Across the way

the wind and the bus stop

play accompaniment to my verse

issuing rudimentary whistles

like the first ever wind instrument

long since abandoned

The traffic on Route 9 seeps by

each car passes

like mobile paranoia

Then

I hear his slapping feet

dogging the pavement

like a lazy flogging

His body reminds me of an old and busted watch

beyond repair

that still somehow maintains

stubborn, perfect time

He collapses through the parking lot

in his usual black nylon jogging suit

lined with yellow reflectors

that shine and move

like scared, wounded night

He slips inside the bus stop

sweaty and winded as only

a community college professor can be

when reduced to this

The scenario resumes:

He calls himself Will The Shake

and I am one of his

lesser know characters, Fellatio

In the silent corner, he pays me

Not as much this time

He says, Don't shoot it all in one place

If he only knew where it went

But still, I start

gently,

                    pyrrhic

thinking

and so, and so

On cue

he takes out a small, tortoise shell comb

and strokes his finely trimmed, academic beard

as if posing for a bust

He turns his head casually, side to side

I excite to

               anapestic

thinking

on the way, on the way

In caesural pause

I say, I'm going to be a poet

He rocks on his heels and laughs

He says, This'll be grist for the mill

I quicken,

          iambic

  

thinking

like this, like this

As always, to fill the silence,

his voice echoes among the empty public stink:

'Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric;

I am justly kill'd with mine own treachery.'

His voice bounds and then

quivers as

I move to

     spondee

thinking

footfalls, footfalls

This past Autumn he has serial killed

He's re-stabbed Polonius

again dunked Ophelia

had Gertrude swallow twice

and just now

has speared-speared Laertes

He turns away, my one and only rule

completing this, his never ending lust

I barely dare to glance this nylon fool

at his perverse and guarded figure just

before I slip back through the door outside

I dream of sleep and dread the too long walk

and wonder if he knows this eventide

behind the doorway so well spent and hawked

that I've managed with guile to make Hamlet

the darkest shade of green impotence for

a boy of lesser name and age has met

the challenges of life head on, though poor

to get a seat (full paid by Will undone)

for INTRO. POETRY class one-oh-one.