Thursday’s Rune: Poésie de l’escalier

I thought, he’s like Cousin Eddie.
He sat there,
smart in his mind,
middle-aged,
“right” minded,
then he asked me
(innocently enough).

“What do you do,”
he says to me,
“to keep busy?”

Busy?
Suddenly,
I had a moment!,
ya know?

Maybe
it weren’t his fault, but still.
I swallowed hard and
played nice by avoiding
my roar of revenge.
(Fuck you very much
for asking.)

I listened
as he bragged on
for hours
giving testimonial evidence
of his high holy wonderfulness,
and dogged dedication
to his personal
world of work.

I nodded and smiled. Bit my lip,
while slowly bleeding
feigned interest.

What do I do to keep busy?

For God’s sake, Bumpkin.
I waste my few remaining days
listening to friendly folks,
feeding on family fodder;
pleasingly holding my tongue,
and sitting on my hands.
Legs crossed.
I smile

like Hannibal Lecter
pondering…

mon ne pas savoir répliquer
sur le moment.

Look both ways. Dine well.
Choose friends from the menu, accept family from the stars.
Mind you, there are gaps.
Ponder politely the wellsprings of innocent idiocy and the moods of sensitive old lions.

***

Glos: In English, the title means staircase poetry. The last line translates as my not knowing how to reply at the moment. ‘Cousin Eddy’ is a character (Randy Quaid) from the National Lampoon Christmas Vacation movie. As for Hannibal, “Well, Clarice. Have the lambs stopped screaming?”

11 thoughts on “Thursday’s Rune: Poésie de l’escalier”

  1. I love when writers send me to The Google. I wanted to know what staircase poetry is. According to my findings, this here piece is a perfect representation, packing a good wallop. I read it twice. Just because. It was that good. I cannot explain how but this just goes with my two hours of lying in bed last night, pleading for Morpheus to come in and shut up my brain.

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    1. Thank you, Dale. Such a “that good” compliment.
      Hmmm. Now I need to look it up, again.
      I wish I could train my brain to just let things go and move on. I hope my writing about such events will allow brain cells to release recall so that I may focus on the now and the real (or sleep).
      It took me a while to stop dancing with that poem, as you may recall.
      When our brains talk, we must listen. 🙂

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      1. I am rather glad I looked it up. I feel this could be a genre that would work for me. Maybe.
        I keep saying that writing about a word will fix it into my memory. Guess what? Not all of ’em.
        Yeah well, could the brains just shut up so we can get a decent amount of sleep?

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      6. I asked your advice about the last line (French) fitting with the stanza. You told me it was fine. But I worked on it for weeks afterward.

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      7. No, I remember that! It’s the sleeping better in my youth that I don’t remember.
        And was it weeks ago? My goodness. Where does the time go?

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