In This Scene, My Copilot and I Crash the Moonbuggy

Monday, July 15, 2013
In this scene, my copilot
and I crash the moonbuggy
into the Cretaceous Period.
Listen to the way I soften my O’s
when I scream into the headset,
Houston, we have a prehistoric problem!
That sort of enthusiasm is what separates
Copenhagen community theater
from the late Danish masters.
In these memoirs, I’ve expounded
on that dappled marble we call memory.
I’ve disabled the regret machine
defectively spewing from my chest.
Like a weak-willed forest fire,
I’ve spread only that ruin
which I believed beneficial.
Once, as a student,
I fell into a deep sleep
during a public showing
of Triumph of the Will.
Asleep through the deafening marches,
iron eagles crowding the lens,
asleep through the next two decades
until a loose chandelier collapsed.
Around me, the bones
of my fellow moviegoers
heaped the carpet.
In this scene from Dino Disaster 5,
I tap into those twenty stolen years.
Watch my lip quiver
as I unhitch my raptor bike
for one more ride.
As I deliver the titular line
This ain’t no time-spill,
it’s a dino disaster,
the tears you see are real,
the ghosts moonlighting
in the camera’s cavernous afterglow.
Monday, July 1, 2013