Becky Shapiro       is a favorite performance poet at Madison venues. She is an undergraduate at Beloit College. These poems are selected from her chapbook, Paraffinalia. Order it from her at shapiror@stu.beloit.edu

FAST GIRLS

The cliffs are running off themselves without
me
I am running red lights and my motor
I am gunning my motor to announce myself to the world
this intersection is the moment of my birth, my debutante ball, my prom queen, my punk band, my cherry bomb
I am stopping in the middle of the intersection
to light a cigarette
and toss it out the window

I can light and toss a cigarette at an average speed of sixty miles an hour
driving in a perfectly straight line blindfolded
vomiting into my shirt
during rush hour
which drives at thirty
the speed at which a cherry bomb falls
depends upon the wind velocity
and the weight of one's virginity

I am a hit and run
I've got the burns to prove it

I run out of gas in the middle of the last intersection where I threw my last cigarette
I run away from home at least three times a week
I drive past my house sixty times without recognizing it
I think my landlords think I'm stalking them
they are amazed at how many times I've lost my keys today
each time I wear a different shade of lipstick so I won't be recognized
the speed at which a kiss is incinerated
regardless of its lipstick
depends upon the fireworks; i.e. the falling of a cherry bomb
and whether or not she's prude

I will have my midlife crisis within the space of four minutes
at the age of twenty-five
I will get it over and done with
I am a hit and run

I can type sixty words a minute
one word for each second
each second calculated as it passes
through morse code from a naval academy
that measures the falling of time through an eyedropper
hanging from a pendulum that swings from a brigadier's beltbuckle
as he stands in the exact center of eternity
each word falling out of a pornographic actress's pussy
into my eye, where I pluck it out with a thumbnail
and throw it into the intersection
one wrist on the clutch, one foot on the brake
one eye on the speedometer to ascertain the exact velocity of one random gesticulation
and find that the sentence of what
I wanted
that word
to say
has run on
with
out
me

The speed at which a syllable is lit and tossed out the window
directly correlates to the instant I emerged into the world
flames airbrushed along my hips in fine detail and personalized "Betty"
I was ejected from my mother's body at an average speed of sixty miles an hour
which translates to about four seconds of labor
it was like: oh! uhhhh… aurghhh… and then I shot out screaming.

© Becky Shapiro

 

JAZZ ETHOS

and the man asks
how
is
jazz
and the man asks um yea
ooh yes
the 1
      4
      5
progression
but – like something completely different
that's what I'm asking for
like even 1950s bebop people
were trying everything
they could get their hands on
like even everything they could get their hands
on
and the man says 1
                            4
                            5
                            is how it goes
so thus came bop prosidy, he says
and thus came pop rhapsody
and thus came rap popsidy
and thus came you and I sitting in a flophouse
on a sunday evening
and there will be a paper on this due next week
and do you believe in spontaneity, he asks
because all this has been changed
this has all been changed
since Bessie Smith last undressed
don't expect spontaneity
yea since Bessie Smith last undressed
and the man stops and thinks about her dropping slips
the man stops and thinks about those full rounded knees
he will never touch
because she's dead
and he says, what's fascinating is –
if you read his poetry…
and list
      list
      list
ooh, man
why don't you just write something and
dedicate it to Charlie Parker, okay honey
like why don't you write something and
dedicate it to Medeski, Martin and Wood
because
this originates here
this has penetrated here
and jazz is dead
jazzclubs are dead
Charlie Parker is dead
I step over their carcasses in the street
they are handing from the dim bulbs of streetlight at night
looks like everybody in here listens to dead
and the man talks about lyric value
      talk about the emotional core
      talk about mon-o-chro-ma-tic, he
says
      talk about how commm-plex
      talk about what-it-tends-to-focus-on
and all I can think is this
that in a little room somewhere just as he's about ready to die
the old jazz artist is coughing on his bed
and I mean somebody like Charlie Parker
somebody who the man says was a heroin addict, and he says how pathetic
but he's not pathetic, he's just dead
and how about somebody like Charlie Parker sitting straight up in bed
just as he's about ready to die
and the sheets fall down all soft around his tiny waist
and he sits up like an iron monument and
screams very clearly
      Stop talking about me in classrooms!
      Stop about talking about my
monochrome scale
      and what the fuck is postmodern
anyway?
and then he falls back down and dies
yea
yea
talk about 1
                 4
                 5
but the man wasn't listening
because the man was in the academy at the time
and he was in the academy writing papers on Eliot and Liszt
at the time
so he goes on
World War I and its end
      poetry and its end
      when is this going to end
and in the 19th century Whitman walked off
with his stick and his beard and his lover
and said
     "We don't need yr shit
      American writers need very long roads
      American writers need big breathfuls
and lots of sex
                              uh – you know
                              uh – you know"

© Becky Shapiro