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Imagination
I bought an eighty-inch TV,
just for the box—
set it up like a teepee.
Jump in like tee-hee!
Throw the screen out the window.
Let it crash.
Now there’s an 80” stuck in my lawn,
and people slow down just to whisper,
“Wow… this guy’s artsy.”
Mission complete.
Turns out Mary didn’t have a lamb.
She had a crack habit
and a court date.
Life was better made of lead—
heavy, quiet,
used to mean something
Anyway—
I’m the Wall King.
Just walking.
Dripping with metaphors,
casually passing a bar
so packed with puns
I can smell a librarian’s breath
from the sidewalk like:o
shhh… no talking.
I wave.
Web spinner, sinner—what’s for dinner?
Probably canned beans and regret.
I’m a different thinker.
Opened my brain like a paint can
and tinted the gray
a little pinker.
No dreams.
Noted.
Polyurethane coated.
Polly, you’re a pain
with your coats and coats
and coats of—
Breathe.
Breathe useless airs.
Angel lets me breathe.
Devil always stares.
But I cares…
I cares. I cares!
That’s when I hear it—
“Hi, I’m Death.”
Oh hey.
Didn’t expect you this early.
Death shrugs:
“As a frequent spectator…
take a side quest.”
So I do.
I walk down to the park
where squirrels are doing calculus
and pigeons speak in Morse.
I sit on a bench made of half-memories
and DayQuil residue
and I think:
Energy is everything.
It exists inside your mind.
Space is confidential.
Which is why we keep
bumping into each other’s
potential.
Suddenly—flashback.
Sandler, on TV,
taught me about my oblongata—
made connections like:
“Hi, I’m the brain. What’s up, pain and suffering?”
And I answer: Nada.
Then I freeze.
Manual breathing activated.
Chest rising like it has stage fright.
Autonomous… imagination…
and a Beatle told me once—
Ob-la-di, ob-la-da—life goes on, too.
And I laugh.
Because I’m sitting in a teepee
made from a TV box,
eating cold soup with Death,
and nobody can tell me
this isn’t art you see.
Copyright ©
Robert Martines
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