BOB SHARKEY
THE MORNING AFTER
The wind howls, the sun is weak, the scones stale. But.
Up the band that played “Louie, Louie” in front of St. Patrick’s!
Up the old jazzman who quoted “Danny Boy” late in the subway!
The crowd from the Whitney Biennial has traded spaces
with Old Country Buffet denizens from Latham Circle Mall.
Thin girls in jade leather boots scream
“BRING THE PEASANTS HOME NOW!”
as they sit breathing the antiseptic cafeteria smell
where thick toothless women gummed green Jell-O.
Stunned bald men and their progeny suffering from
unintended consequences of electronic Little League scoreboards
carry signs saying “BRING THE CHIC HOME NOW!”
as they shuffle where sensitive dark-haired young men
tried to be, oh, just so in the moment yesterday.
On Broadway, tourists snap shots of genuine
NYC style sign waving loudly shouting demonstrators
crowded into pens behind steel barricades,
mostly young and cute despite their anger.
A gray generation interspersed screams, “AGAIN?”
Their collective amplified protestations,
their three year old NOW’s
sucked into the energy of the city
like yesterday’s seven hour parade,
like its most grievous wound.
Enough debate about what art is! ENOUGH!
Paint, sculpt, film, photograph, dance, act, write, juxtapose and compose.
Slip into an obit, “his last words were, ‘bring them home.’”
Tag the walls with the ashes of burnt flags spelling NOW!
THE ABSCESS
I’d been walking over a river bridge in Cohoes. Suddenly, a cloth with a strong medicinal smell was pressed over my mouth. When I came to, I was at a table in a stainless steel room sitting across from a very tall young woman who was staring down at me. Her dark suit made her appear very official. I scanned her shimmering black hair, long shapely legs, a skirt and blouse seemingly tailored just for her body. She was ravishing.
“Awake at last,” she said impatiently. “I’m from the FBI and will give you your final instructions,” she continued ominously.
Ah, the new FBI, I thought. Well, I’m old school and thinking massive thermonuclear blowjob from you my dear.
“Why are you smiling?” she asked.
“Where am I?” I replied.
“The Terminal.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s what we call this place. You have no need to know its official name. It’s your final destination. The end for you.”
Suddenly fully awake, I asked, “What? Is this a prison?”
“Not exactly,” she replied, “people get out of prison.”
“I’m here forever?”
“Until you die.”
“Why?”
“You have been found totally reprehensible in terms of your views, your writings, your conversations, your very thoughts. You have been censured by both the state and the federal level. You have been extracted from society.”
As you can imagine, I was shocked. “What the fuck!” What about my rights? Who sent me here? What’s your name? Who’s your boss? I need to call my wife to let her know where I am.”
“You have been extracted,” she said calmly, almost soothingly. While she wrote on a clipboard, she went on, “I will bring you to a small stainless steel cell. You will be locked inside it. Forever. It’s designed to meet your basic bodily needs and provide physical nourishment. There’s a slot on the top that will open for an hour each day to reveal the sky. I am the last person you will ever have contact with. You will have no access to events outside. No TV, no internet, no papers, no books.”
“How about a bible?” I interrupted.
“You have been extracted,” she continued, “you will remain here until such time as you die naturally or such time as your thoughts become reprehensible again, whichever time is less. If the latter, you will be immediately gassed. The cell you will be in can read your thoughts and will know your very dreams. There’s a very low tolerance. We need to turn these cells over quickly. I’ve written additional instructions that if you ever again think or dream of me in a sexual way you will be put to death in a special way. I’ve ordered that, in such circumstance, your end be ‘massive and thermonuclear.’”