Two Proses by Michael Brockley

Woolgathering Review

1 year ago

Aloha Shirt Man Flunks Out of the Bruce Springsteen Air Guitar Academy

On the first day Aloha Shirt Man showed up with an

imaginary Rickenbacker. A guy wearing an island shirt

cluttered with pineapples. A cheap pair of sunglasses he

picked up at a convenience store on the ride over. He

insisted on playing air guitar left-handed. As if he were

Hendrix or McCartney. Throughout rehearsals, Aloha

windmilled like Townshend. Grinned during the sad

songs. Stared at his finger work on the anthems.

Badlands. No Surrender, for God’s sake. And the guy

didn’t mesh with Brotherhood Row, with the Boss, Big

Man, Little Stephen, and Nils lined up at the front of the

stage for the bullet song. Sax and axes pointing the way

for Bruce to pull out of Podunktown to win. The thing is,

with that imaginary guitar pointing the wrong way, Aloha

was heading back toward the house Bruce was busting

out of. Retreating without Wendy sitting like a prom

queen beside him in the front seat. A hickey on her neck.

Lipstick puckers blushing on his shirt collar.

you google-search #sorrynotsorry images for a twitter-based poetry writing prompt because you’ve been banned from twitter for being a clueless old man

you’ve never heard of demi lovato and her hit sorry not

sorry was never shared on curmudgeopedia you’re after

all the last person drinking coffee in a diner in a black-

and-white movie in which everyone runs out of luck you

lose sleep wondering whether philip marlowe solved all

the murders in the big sleep but you recognize alyssa

milano she’s the actress you used to confuse with mila

kunis one of them was seduced by a vampire and the

other earned her badass degree in the book of eli you

swipe past memes that read optimistic heathen and

why i hate the yeti so much until scanning a list of the

most overrated movies of the last twenty years you’ve

seen nine of them including the one where charlize

theron kicks armageddon in the nuts while mad max is

hog-tied to the grill of a war wagon of course you

recognize your hey how you doin’ friend joey tribbiani

and the wolf of wall street who toasts you with a flute of

champagne while he picks the pocket of your future you

can always pop off for an arrogant bastard beer if

you don’t feel apologetic you might even channel your

inner ron burgundy after all your opinions were

disproven by somebody else’s facts somebody who

reminds you that dumb tigers are deep- stating the

world and you’re not important enough to hate you’re

not willy wonka and you’re still more philip marlowe than

mad max when you hit your mark you nail your line dead

men are heavier than broken hearts and isn’t that what

dinosaurs would do

Howie Good

Michael Brockley is a retired school psychologist who lives in Muncie, Indiana. His poems have appeared in Unlost, Young Ravens Literary Review, Fatal Flaw, and Visiting Bob: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Bob Dylan. Poems are forthcoming in Flying Island, Last Stanza, and Moving Images: Poetry Inspired by Cinema.).