The Superb Typewriter
So, beneath your balcony,
Somewhere in the drama of a play in Verona,
I asked for your core,
Like Quasimodo or Frankenstein.
(But I was really like the 1931 Bela Lugosi
Count Dracula, vampire of Transylvania.)
You turned your eyes low,
And like an actress in “The Edge of Love,”
You then closed your eyes,
And you held them closed mildly,
And I assumed you were thinking of a polite way quickly to say:
“I’m so sorry. I can’t. No, I couldn’t do that,”
As if you had searched on Google
For a polite way to reject a hapless suitor.
I braced myself,
And you opened your eyes and looked at me,
Through the vulnerable windows
To my tattered, but hopeful, soul,
And said, “Yes, sure,”
As if you meant it.
I am not manic insane now,
Like the Crazy Fuckin’ Mexicans
Or a pomegranate or Akira Kurosawa.
Strangely, I am calm.
I assume there is God in all this
And in the quarter or half or full moon,
Or in the center of the sun, or in comets.
Now you have my silly, silly calling card,
And I shall wait as if cast in “Godot.”
Still I sing: “Gods, stand up for the bastard coffee club,”
And your coffee was delicious last night.
(I know this, even though I no longer drink the stuff,
Because of my incessant love and high blood pressure.)
You picked up your coffee pot,
Which is big, like cement trucks,
And smiled and said: “Okay.”
You turned away and went into the kitchen,
And I thought: “I would war,
Like George Patton,
To defend this woman’s pleasant voice.”
I took the stairs and the black January 25th air,
And I took my car, and I rolled along Russell Road at 25 mph,
As if in Paris.
Now I sit, at 4:24 in the morning,
Like Henri Matisse, I suppose,
Typing quixotic sonnets on my perfect typewriter,
An old IBM Selectric.
LOOOVE THIS! Love the mix of old and modern references-SO original! Shakespeare and google in one poem? LOVE it!!
Thanks so much, Shanny.
So, so much.