theatrescript

POETRY: KATIE GOETZ – THE JUDGE

THE JUDGE

I tried to wrap my words around you
too hard for too many weeks
with too little success.
The right ones found me
when I remembered a phrase
I heard an out-of-town judge turn
all those years ago
at the county fair.
In giving his reasons
to the crowd in the bleachers,
he explained why
he hadn’t placed my steer —
an athletic black baldie
with a mercurial temper —
any higher in the class.
The judge slowed his words
over the tinny old PA:
“He’s got some real nice parts…
He just dudn’t tie together
quite the way I need him to.”

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POETRY: KYLE FLAK – CARNIVORE DOLLS

CARNIVORE DOLLS

             After tuba practice, I went to the mall to look at Carnivore Dolls.  I’ve got:  The Bobcat, The Crab Eating Mongoose, The Eurasian Badger, The Ethiopian Wolf, and The Giant Panda.  I ain’t got:  The Bush Dog, The Aardwolf, The Spotted Hyena, and multiple various others.  My Dad only lets me get one at a time, which is totally lame.  Johnny Bronson just gets the whole damn Annual Set mailed to him year after year after year–the lucky bastard.  One of these days, I’m just going to run away from home, become my own Carnivore Doll, eat whatever stuff gets in my way.  Mailbox:  chew, chew, chew.  Ice Cream Truck:  chew, chew, chew.  Homework:  chew, chew, chew.

             Yeah.  Chewing’s good.   But now I’ve got to decide what I’m going to tell that crummy old man who sits behind the counter.  The one who really controls my fate.  The one who can either let me or not let me play with the European Pine Marten right in the store.  That thing is fucking great.  He’s feisty.  He’s moody.  He’s grouchy.

             He eats rodents, birds, and beetles.   Also:  he’s an excellent tree climber.  Whenever I get to play with him, I make him climb all over the fucking place.  He gets on people’s sweaters.  He gets on people’s heads.  He taunts and flaunts.  He coasts and boasts.  His fur is brown and full and lush.  You really wouldn’t want to get on his bad side because even his good side is basically a bad side. 

             Yup.  He’s one rough dude.

             I really hope that I will get to play with him today.  Play with him for own particular purposes. 

             Which basically are:  to harm. 

             To harm and to harm and to harm.

 

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POETRY: ANTON ROSE – CITY OF GODS

City of Gods

This city is a peak, a trough,
a mountain, a valley,
a lifeline of light and shadow raised up
by plate tectonics. Lights spread below,
the buzzing circuit of a colossal
computer, a motherboard,
a filthy birthing pool.

Commercial, residential, industrial;
bound together by ties of desire,
rarely sated but never forgotten.
Roads and highways pulsate
with specks of light like lifeblood;
thrums of energy throb back and forth,
fuelling the pulse of the night.

In the storm there is silence, in fragments.
Up above, angels pass by, watching ominous
clouds form together and disperse.

–

Find Anton Rose at antonrose.com or on Twitter @antonjrose

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