Featured Poem 8/15/04


IN THE GRAVEYARD OF OLD CARTOONS

Where did they bury Superman?
He lies encased in kryptonite
and his tombstone shines green
in the long Antarctic night.

Calvin laid Hobbes to rest
in a shallow backyard hole.
The beady button eyes stare
sightlessly while the dirt falls.

Li'l Abner tapped one too many jugs
of moonshine and, walking home
from the square dance at night,
was run down by a drunken teenage boy.

Charlie Brown lived to a ripe old age.
Crippled by repeated attempts
to kick the football that Lucy always
pulled away at the last instant,
he was found in his favorite rocking chair,
Snoopy flying fighter-cover above.

Dick Tracy retired when the day came
he could no longer remember the number
on his two-way wrist radio/TV.
The criminals he once jailed
now drop by to pass the time.

One by one, they gather in the dim recesses
of the newspaper morgue. Eagerly, they peer
at the young cub reporter surreptitiously
bending close to uncover a legend, a lit candle
in one hand, fiercely hoping for that one tongue
that will kiss them, curl them, and deliver them,
radiant, into the dustbin of history.


James P. Roberts

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