MAGIC DISCLAIMER
COMPÈRE: These poems depend on audience participation. They cannot happen without you. However, I too understand the feeling of not being in the mood. So, if I approach you but you would rather not participate, simply close my eyes, and I will disappear. Okay?
So, for example, who is somebody that definitely does not want to participate tonight, can you raise your hand. So like definitely does not want to participate tonight. Just raise your hand if that’s you.
(Several audience members raise hands.)
Okay, this is how it works. (COMPÈRE approaches one of the hands raised.)
RAISED HAND: (Laughing.) No, no. Really no..
COMPÈRE: No listen, all you gotta do is close my eyes. And then… Yeah your hands over my eyes, slip ‘em down like that… just there… So you won’t have any part… Just like that. It’s that simple.
Thank you, problem solved.
RAISED HAND: Well, okay. That’s not so bad.
COMPÈRE: See! That’s not so bad!
(COMPÈRE returns to microphone blindly: runs into several seated audience members, sort of lumbering over them, touching, too much touching—they’re sorry about that. With hands outstretched, they seek the stage again… microphone bops them in face.)
I just had a thought. I’ll close my, I mean, no no you close your eyes and I’ll disappear instead. As opposed to you. Just a little trick to help you. Let’s move on.
ELEGY FOR THE IMAGINARY CHILD
STYLISH POEM
(DISPUTANT hands ARBITER a plastic grocery bag containing drywall spackle, a blue marker, a hammer, sheet metal snips, WD-40, a bottle of bleach, and a picture of [celebrity] circa 1999, then takes a seat in the haircut chair)
ARBITER: The usual, I imagine? (Places a smock around the neck of the DISPUTANT.)
DISPUTANT: I am very attractive to the world indeed. Often its circle comes to me on all fours, begging to enter my psychology.
ARBITER: (Pours bleach onto a rag—huffs.) Ho-ho!
DISPUTANT: There is a particular pedestal I like to rest on—it is a movie projector, like my friend here’s. (Motions to a photo of [celebrity].)
ARBITER: Ah yes, the usual! (Gives the DISPUTANT a 360-spin.)
DISPUTANT: The news reports that sleeping as long as you want is making a health-care climate-change comeback, (Is spun back the other way.) as are Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em robots spawned from nonrenewable oil.
ARBITER: The usual, with its persistence and commonalities, is very comforting.
DISPUTANT: The projector is warm, like a fresh load of hotel laundry.
ARBITER: Spring is here, yet so many carrots dwindle!
(The ARBITER cuts the hair off the top of their head, holding the hank in his hand.)
DISPUTANT: Whenever I drink, I hold my favorite hammer in fear of any sudden movement.
(The ARBITER lights his hair—it goes up in a flash. The DISPUTANT doesn’t move a muscle. ARBITER begins tracing DISPUTANT’s veins with the marker.)
DISPUTANT: Enough: A river cannot drink. Though I deserve my map. (Points to his right cheek—ARBITER slaps it with Society; points to his left—Society slaps again. ARBITER is obviously upset by this action.) There there, every psychology enjoys its respective zoning ordinances which have been grandfathered in.
(Gathering himself, the ARBITER applies spackle to his own eyes, waving his hands over them to dry more quickly. The DISPUTANT, as if “knowing the deal,” tosses him the can of WD-40. The ARBITER spritzes his mouth, ready to take on the world.)
ARBITER: (In song.)
blue,
The sky is
The earth is
dirt,
Water wet—
Apocolypse apocolypse apocolypse a sec.
(ARBITER ties the grocery bag around his head, eventually collapsing from suffocation.)
(DISPUTANT Hollywood-smiles into a hand mirror then pulls off the mask. It’s [celebrity]. Their eyes shine pitchblack.)
