Fitzgerald - George Washington: poems

GEORGE
WASHINGTON Poems A DAM F ITZGERALD CONTENTS Adjusting type size may change line breaks. Landscape mode may help to preserve line breaks. There are two Laundromats, the inevitable McDonalds, a Howard Johnson, assorted discount leather outlets, video arcades, a miniature golf course, two run-down amusement parks, a fake fort where a real one once stood, a Dairy-Mart, a Donut-land, and a four-star Ramada Inn built over an ancient Indian burial ground. S USAN H OWE GEORGE WASHINGTON After my family died there was a replacement family. I lost my dog but soon a replacement one arrived in tassel bow the color of goose stuffing and liver. My replacement house followed after the real one was blown apart. A replacement head and tunic of lilac and locust came in the mail for me soon after.

Later, replacement hands retrofitted my actual ones, their lines resembling the rivers that span the district where I was born between the replacement Garden State Parkway and the Turnpike. Replacement light and shadow congregate across the ceiling though its still the same old ceiling above my same old bed. Blue replacement pelicans must be lovely to behold. A replacement sun rises in the East and sometimes sets softly like the smell of burning hair in the West. In my former life, The Lordly Hudson was one of my favorite poems, its serenade and arcane grandeur somewhat inspiring then. Still, the replacement version doesnt really do much for my brains chronic synaptic degradation.

I own a banjo. It sits atop the debris of my privileged life: socks, shoehorns, erotic cassettes. No need one replacement afternoon for nostalgia to fill my lungs but like mercury it does, the way sleep singes our casual bodies at evening. Nothings missing yet sadness falls in me like something. Replacement dad knows the pain, son. Replacement me crawls to the fridge and opens the freezer door, its glow enshrining my dumb face.

About my replacement self, I feel only average levels of attachment and revulsion, inconsequence. One day you make love to a replacement having finally bedded the person you loved. And before long, replacement you lounges with replacement them on a green sofa that is a fine forgery of itself. You could barge in, copying and pasting random saws from heroes but your voice would only mean your insides curdle to nothing but birds. Replacement kids hoe bisexual gardens. Replacement agents sprawl in saunas awaiting their spines to flake into petunias, mulch and tendril, insect and screed.

And whoever you are probably just left a little while ago. A thief stole 6 oxen from your wagon. SPACE BAR to continue. You decide to rest. You lug back 88 lbs. of otter meat.

You have reached Blue River Crossing. Bindi has died. You have typhoid. Next landmark: 88 miles. You have exhaustion. You have fish odor syndrome.

You lose 3 sets of relatives and 84 Sharpies. Your supplies: 2 oxen, no clothing, 3 wagon wheels. SPACE BAR to continue. You find a turtle shell with no turtle in it. You have herpes. You have anthrax.

You have polyps. The wagon tipped over while you were womanizing. You have reached Blue River Crossing. You have family trust issues. You read We who are parting. Smoke-flowers blur red river.

You sleep late. You have $90,000 in outstanding college loan debt. The river flows alone. SPACE BAR to continue. Mountains are surly and blue-haired. A cloud floats from its mark.

You gleam like birds. Here lies Brad Pitt. Here lies Raptor Jesus. Microsoft Word does not recognize the name Shaniqua. You have jaundice, congenital arthritis and calyx blisters. You have no one.

You wail, holler, cry, screech and slam. You are doable in a jiff, crunch, pinch or jot. You marry Xanax to Flonase. SPACE BAR to continue. Your circadian rhythms are fucked. You wonder what happens to tampons in airports.

You have engorged lipids. You figure out the meaning of finger bowls. You inherit The Christian Science Monitor . The river flows alone. Your mind goes away. Everyone in our party has left for another party.

Would you like to look around? Our Lady of Allen, South Dakota, be with us. Our Lady of turquoise towers and water pumps, of dry barbiturate skies barreling oer granaries, bucolic at the continental pole of inaccessibility. Our Lady of Brundage and Wounded Knee, pray for us. Average family income 2,300 USD. Our Lady of Tagg Flats, think of us sometime. In Elmo, Montana, in McNary, Arizona, near Parmelee and Dunseith, steer our grubby tykes through the promises of Sunday Pay-Per-View.

Our Lady of Boys Town, weep for us in aisles bleaker than Walmarts in Belden and Muniz. Shampooers and fast food fryers, nanny aides and drivers work for greasy wads in zippered sheets stained with love. Our Lady of Del Mar Heights, whats the dillio? Lady of Calio, Madonna of Oglala, Virgin of Las Lomas, Mother of Whiterocks and Winslow West, scrunchies and lip gloss flake about your departing feet. Glam metal, nourish us. Roseanne reruns, comfort us. Prairie casinos, protect us.

I saw Our Lady in Spring Creek and North Hartwell, in La Rosita and Nageezi, by Lago and Lukachukai looking bedraggled about the eyes. Her wrinkles tied in crows-feet, bellied by refrigerated mac n cheese, hair-curler stiff, stinking of lye and Marlboro Reds, cleaning ranch condominiums littered with coolers of heavenly Coors Light. Our Lady of Sheep Springs wrestling for Friendlys blintzes. Our yellow-lipped, chubby-wristed mother, flowing in tie-dye muumuu, cucumber sundress, pebble-fisted, softly skirting along kiddie pools on unmown lawns in babyshit peep-toe platforms, by handlebar streamers humping paydirt. In Sawmill and La Puerta, bring Kool-Aid coupons and save us our White Castle gallon-kind big slurps. Give ever your grist to the grits of highway rest stops.

Our Lady of Wanblee, help rebuild the bleachers at Butterfield Regional Middle School where the boys grope their camera phones in shadow, zit-stippled, molested by high-voltage power wires arching across aluminum meadows, steel ladies tacking clotheslines. Our Lady of Gentle Snowfall, Mudslides and Indoor Home Plumbing. Our Lady of BuzzFeed and Tyler Perry. Our Lady of Pooper Scoopers and Ketchup Dispensaries. Our Lady of Skechers and Old Navy, of Dental Dams and Grease Trucks, of Single Mothers and Closet Cases, Road Rage and Outlets, of Trailer Parks and Cereal, Our Lady of Monday Night Football, Our Lady All About Consumer Confidence, RVs and Veteransbe with us now. I was a mountain once written by a blind hand and there I stood remote from human interference just a mountain of stuff not distinguished so much lording over my domain sovereign in neutral space contained as I wanted or inclement as I had to be shape my distortion and that wasnt really bad.

What rolled down my sides flowed in my sound mind left little sleep to reason. Walk my barren clime. Pitch wherever you like. No longer part of nature, scrub-weed fills my head. When the grass was full I sang a different song. You were my gym buddy ferreting along spotty fluorescent ramps.

Misbegotten signals blinked out bumpkin lanes over sable grass. We passed through many things. Peach sirens, entryway orderlies. Mangled disposition-stations. Chief in disbelief was concrete love. Firmer still, a melee awkwardness that showed all registrants just how we managed to pickpocket night.

Then came dark crowds. Some doodled for the pad, debriefed what pumiced eyes meant in multi-dotted foreign rows. Buildings like a spiders clothes. Later, we sped backwards. A maw orchard, windless in the mind, boomed electronic lifts. I spied you at the prow of some sensation.