Suicide Is Painless: The Theme from M.A.S.H.
A situation comedy starring corpsmen
and wounded warriors.
Is this the only thing
on?--he wonders, pointing his remote
control
at the screen. It’s Sunday,
and he’s weary.
He’s tried napping, but can’t sleep. His TV
only gets three
channels. If he wants to watch, it’s M.A.S.H. or
it’s infomercials.
Cue the depressing music. Here come
the helicopters,
ferrying the wounded and soon-to-be dead. Here come
the actor-doctors, scrubbing up before surgery. Close up
on Alan Alda, as he bends over a stretcher. Some nurses
sprinting clear of mortar fire.
He is one
of the tiny percentage
of M.A.S.H. viewers
who has actually tried
suicide.
It didn’t work;
it was not funny.
And it certainly wasn’t
painless.
He remembers the movie version.
So much better
than the TV
spin-off.
The movie, with Elliott Gould
and Donald Sutherland. Gallows humor
at its finest. He read somewhere
that the director of the M.A.S.H. movie
wanted a theme song so mawkish,
it “throws folks for a loop.”
Like an April Fool’s joke.
It worked. That awful song, staying
in the brain
of the depressive
far too long.
Every re-run
turning up, always on a Sunday.
Whereby if you don’t have cable,
they can really stick it
to you:
Like infomercials for do-it-yourself
catheters.
Like Alan Alda,
breaking the news to a young
soldier: I’m sorry son, we had to
amputate. You’ll never walk again.
He turns off
the TV.
Time for some reading; and maybe
some drinking.
Which won’t make him feel any
better. He knows. Except that now—the sad music
has turned
into an image of Loretta Swit. Fatigued
in her fatigues; yet she seems to want
to manage a smile for him. She seems
to want to help him
feel better...
What a sweetheart. He lets her.
A Theory of Road Rage Upon Picturing a Portrait of a Cybertruck
It’s all planes
and geometry run amok. Don’t mention
the color—gun
metal doesn’t even get it; dirty silver.
Probably drone-driven,
but one can’t tell
because of the
tint, it’s impervious
to analysis by
dint of the awful angles,
some new piece
for the board game Clue, imagined
by Elon Musk and Prez 47, blooming
into a size impossible to
reckon.
*
I was in a crosswalk, and one was
bearing down
on me (probably
drone-driven, it’s just as well)
—I soiled
my jeans and was sick
to my stomach for weeks.
*
Somewhere an outlier
waits on you,
hates on you
for the way
you change lanes, push
a shopping cart
or work over
a piece of
fried chicken.
No fault, they simply can’t stand
the sight of you, alright?
It’s a terrible
matter of the facts upon this
“life.”
Always a choice: Let it
go
or let your own
anger take you
for a ride.
*
Not surprising they packed a bomb
into one.
Lit the fuse
and scurried out
of Vegas, out of sight.
Know them
by the wash
of blackness, windshield sloping
Space X grille
like two palms pressed
into an Anti Prayer.
It’s hard, but
don’t let them
take you there, into their
Vector of Payback, the nowhere
of violence on parade.
Jesus Christ said to love them
back, but oh, Messiah, it’s hard.
Let the waves of mirth break
upon your breast; the ground will
quake—and swallow
that awful thing
you’ve been
picturing (putrid pewter,
pick axe-pockmarked-Money Changer
Silver badly in need
of a bath) Laugh
them down into the Fault Line
that started as
mistake. Shield
your eyes and wave
with your boot.
Just step back. Let those horns
toot.
Yield.
Your light is green, it’s a blessed
gift to be alive. Yet merciful
God, the thing is
ugly.
Just drive on, you tell
the monstrosity
in passing.
Drive.
Talking Heads
David Byrne said stop
making sense
and he meant
every word a switch
to a new vulcanization,
human balloon animal
stitched into
an over-sized suit,
dropping the aura from the floor to
the loop of the mike:
His voice a mere
timbre of helium at three
in the morning it's mid
afternoon.
Dig him
on your side of a fence
when the rustlers
and the hustlers come--
those maladies of mind
and soul--dead Sirius
six-shooting ghost
cowpokes riding saddle
under ten
gallon hat shadows
shouting,
Imagine That!
Now fear This!
be out of town by Five on your
knees straighten right
and fly up.
There is nothing
but time, and it’s not
on our side.
Add comment