Or Dream of a zoot-suited dalliance
By Bob Boldt
Mickey Rourke’s face,
ruined, like the map of some
bombed and busted kill-country,
spoke at me across a rough picnic table,
whose hob-nailed boards’ ruination
rivaled his stubble-spiked, unshaven face.
into his cups, were drowned out
by a crowd of surly, zoot-suited Pachucos
looking for Muerte
or the next best thing—eh?
Proud in their illiteracy,
and smooth as their black mustachios,
they slithered in, next to Mickey the Momo,
forcing the mescal bottle
from his boxing glove.
the explosive powder of language by way
of my best Groucho Marx imitation.
Their hapless lignums hung
at a forty-five degree longitude,
luggaged with a tearful
nostalgia for the highland home.
Their suddenly downcast eyes
rolled into the pools of Mickey’s
spilled drink and drank.
or for the legions of words whose wagons
were now dragging boats and buildings
out onto the beach where Salvador Dali
sat, munching an erotic Eucharist
while waiting for Gala’s ship to come in.
I yelled into the beers
of my zoot-suited interlocutors,
fretting that they might slipper
a knife beneath my ribs.
But my words came out as smeared
and blurred as a slumbering
syllabus, crashing with no survivors.
| Copyright © 2015 by Bob Boldt |
I saw this the other day and for no reason skipped over it and went to the collation of videos on your collection where I discovered Arnaud. Reading it I see how Rourke is so appropriate a subject to focus on in contemplation of Arnaud himself, both creatively self-destructive.
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