You really got me

 

Flying my Kite 70 x 50 cm - acrylic on synthetic paper

YOU REALLY GOT ME

When I was a kid I dreamed of fake landscapes.

Jungle in black-and-white, for example,

the ape king whirling from limb to

branch as Jane fretted ( wondering perhaps

if her man would ever come

down from the trees, would ever

start to evolve) and her boy…

named Boy…Boy lost, Boy

scratch curly scalp. Boy maybe a little “slow?”   

Or is confusion a symptom

of having a generic name? Think about it.  

(Such a thought plus a couple of bucks just might

get you a double-espresso in a farm state college town. 

Think of corn and wheat. Think of soy beans,

whose odor and texture I can’t even imagine.

Think of woefully flatulent cattle.) From I don’t know  

where my sister’s transistor radio was constantly playing

“You Really Got Me,” by the Kinks—remember that one?

If you do, it’s time to check your blood pressure,

prostate, cut down on butter, red meat, Black Forest

Chocolate Cherry Cake; to dig in, hunker down, pray for release 

from ambition, lust, jealousy, the urge to smoke, the

urge to step out into Midtown traffic against DON’T WALK—

while In the kitchen where nothing’s dire Pamma always   

prepping leg-of-lamb, conjuring  

undulant pastureland in Ireland or Scotland, saying

“Kenny, you will never be a nine-to-five man.”

O Pamma, what hast thou wrought?

And now it’s

the Sahara starring Abbot and Costello

in legionnaire drag 

and I’m there too. Standing on a nearby sand dune

is Mr. Carpenter, our school principal and archetypal a-hole,

tapping the palm of his hand with a

perforated paddle. The man knows everything

there is to know. A “little bird” has told him. A tiny feathered Fink.