Angela Consolo Mankiewicz, US

 

 

Free Verse   De-Cap   "blacklisted screenwriter Robert Lees, 91, found murdered and decapitated in his home Sunday morning, June 20, 2004".   A pool, seeming Olympic sized, roped off into lanes as in Olympic trials The competitors today, are white, American, young of course, male Tomorrow there may be others, yellowish, Eurasian, young of course, maybe female But this is today and I lay on the slab by the pool, naked from the waist down looking At their lovely and anxious faces, breathing lovely, anxious breaths; one curly blond Head looks up at me to explain: we compete to be best at saving lives otherwise doomed Do you understand? he asks. I say nothing. He smiles an earnest smile and says: should we Do well at life-saving, we may be chosen to vie for clean decapitation, clean enough That severed heads leave no dangling detritus, clean enough to present to Herod, before Salome Can desecrate them - if not, we must turn them over to be tagged, set on those shelves with all The others, a disgrace neither we nor our families are likely to survive. Do you understand?   Note: this was/is an attempt to expiate the horror of a friend's end and perhaps the even more horrific image of his lovely, 85 year old, longtime girlfriend having discovered the blanket-covered body, calling 911, and following instructions to "see if he's still breathing" to find the headless corpse of her beloved that Sunday afternoon.     A Putting Aside   A sadness, already weary after an anger, revivable, but not, it appears, worth the effort "Remember the good times and have a drink on me"— Bon Voyage from ICU— from a long-lived friend— 20 years in the making— very different from you— but fitting, nonetheless. acknowledging our half— dozen years of funny times, crying times, there-for-you times     times   so many   times   a litany of   times   too     fast too much "girlfriend" too soon   way   too needy Of course, it couldn't last— Who could survive re- creation in someone else's image someone unknown at the time to be alien— all out-of-this- world's intentions notwithstanding     Temporary Poem 2 - Begun October 18, 2001: Rants   It's not a game anymore     I'm not bored anymore ***** What a spectacular way to blast demons out of one's brain: mother's wrongs, fathers' neglects, sibling's stupidity, child's ingratitude... What more could you ask for? Here are our own, fat, commercial planes re-formatted into missiles to bomb our own, fat capitol buildings—more capitol than the Capitol— Yes, Yes, Of Course we will not forget Plane 3—a chunk of the Pentagon gone, Plane 4—the White House (if, indeed, aimed at) missed; and the Chief staining his shorts on Air Force 1 heading for SAC .... Yes, Yes, Of Course .... But it's New York we mean when we say: it will never be the same— everyone's saying that, the same thing, over and over, like the televised images over and over: plane 1: BAM-CRAsh-fIREbALL—plane 2: BAM-CRAsh-firebALL over and over, the same thing over and over—the same, never the same, always the same. Like when you had the heart attack; like when "breast cancer" was said, outloud ***** We are become united, stricken nuts by our own media's incessant re-plays of one American jetliner followed by another American jetliner, cruising through the top floors of American commerce, top floors that once toppled the glory of the Empire State Building, the real "tallest building in NYC", now loathe to retake the title.     ...Temporary Poem 2 - Continued April 20, 2008: More Rants   Sunlight and moonlight don't agree with you, you who sneered at your fellows buying flags to flap from their cars and FDNY t-shirts to send their kids to school in; you who aren't afraid of comforts and planned pleasures, who can hang your head at vigils with the best of them, your fellows; then piss at your god from a pissed-off throat: gotcha again—the bastard—just like the marke— with the best of them - gotcha right in the ass. Is it a game again?     Am I bored again? ***** Think back to that day when we, not present at the conflagration, not blind from smoke or crazy from sirens and screams, heard the news; think back to the silence in our towns and cities; only tvs and radios reporting the only story— no blaring rap, no thumping rock, no copters, seems not even birds or barking dogs, no horns, no road rage; only smiles and remembered civilities for those same "fellow" Americans. A tear for the good old days. Before the heart attack, before "breast cancer" was said outloud. When it was a game. When I was bored.

 

Read Additional Poems by Angela Consolo Mankiewicz   Angela Consolo Mankiewicz, US: Free Verse from Chapbook, As If: Who Am I To Cry, "Smiles Of a Summer Night", As If