It started when you were five you and three friends streaks in the Texas dust that had collected on your little faces under a sagebrush tree screaming the lyrics to Fight for Your Right to Party
you were always the King Ad Rock
you ruled your little modular home and bought the two-story with the royalties from playing a child in trouble
the other kids at your small-town junior high called you faggot because actors are faggots
you can fall on cue having been shoved into the parched dirt enough times your nostrils full of mud you hit a violent growth spurt and sprouted herds of zits the agency called your look reptilian your once baby face now flat and scaly as a copperhead's
there was a franchise and a series but you were always the awkward reptile kid for had bunched into ropes from the shock of flashes in tight shoes and step tuxedos and longnecked models and sushi
Ketel One bought you a new wallet Molson bought you a watch Camel bought you a pair of loafers size 16
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis, like the other posts on this blog, was a response to an exercise in my English 233: Introduction to Creative Writing that I wrote along with my students. As this poem is not just an ode to the actor Nick Stahl, but to the passage of my own youth and relevance, I decided to take advantage of the blog format and include links directing readers to obits and news pieces regarding deaths...particularly of figures who have been important to "my era." I see this piece as organically undergoing change and I have added and plan to continue adding links whenever an important person, whether a personal, professional or other connection, is lost. The poem will undergo revision as these changes occur (and possibly as changes in Stahl's life occur) until it is almost entirely an "electronic graveyard" or possibly until Stahl's passing.
ReplyDelete