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Heaven
is a small room
in some forgotten, dilapidated
part of town,
where the buildings
are ramshackle,
and there's an old movie theatre
like out of
The Last Picture Show,
a sprawling marquee
with a cryptic message
of missing letters,
canopy necklaced
in luminous pearls,
and next to that
a folksy general store,
with brooms for sale
in the window,
and hats
(everyone wears a hat in heaven)
and next to that a strip bar,
next to a wooden church
with bell tower
and vaulted stained glass.
Main Street is dusty
because it never rains
in heaven,
and everyone is unemployed,
of course,
they sit around all day
collecting heavenly welfare
and spend it on
booze and smokes
or whatever they want,
which isn't much,
and they smile
all the time
because they relish
having
nowhere to be
and nothing to do
except to remember
and talk;
And they talk
endlessly
about everything,
share memories
and opinions,
and nobody minds,
they just listen
and laugh,
and laugh and listen,
at all the silly
things being said,
no one gets angry
or offended,
because after all
they're in heaven
and slowly getting high
and know
they’re never
coming down.
2 comments:
Heaven, I gather, is less a place than a state of mind. More than any religious message (which one would typically associate with heaven), there is a powerful sense of nostalgia in this poem, yearning for a simpler time, when people actually talked with each other and enjoyed each other's company, a time (if such a time indeed ever existed) before polarization and demonization, when everyone knew everyone else in the town. Maybe, heaven, in this poem, is an old black and white movie (like The Last Picture Show), a world to escape into, which may look like a movie set, but feels so very real in a very deep and comforting way. I can relate to that feeling when I watch old b&w movies, westerns or gangster pictures, simple stories with simple characters, like Gary Cooper in High Noon. Movies you can escape into. I felt like I was escaping into this poem in a similar way. Like a great movie director, you are in complete control of the images, which are strongly evocative, familiar, but not hackneyed. The poem pans its way across the page, strings of images, one after another. Here's an example of some beautiful lines that I wish I had written: a sprawling marquee/with a cryptic message/of missing letters,/canopy necklaced/in luminous pearls. Just wonderful.
Yeah seems to be influenced by my fondness for old b&w movies these days. And politics (as usual). I guess the the impetus is that heaven is not as far away as we think it is.
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