Twenty-one words left here. Got a fantastic poetry manual I’ve been wanting for some time. It’s yielding results. Read one below.
©John Jordan
The Turntable A fourteen-year-old boy bewildered by life came home, went down to the basement, and put yesterday’s unfinished and unstarted homework on the turntable. On that turntable, spinning at 33 1/3 RPM, he put his trombone, nestled in its case, a case he wished held a guitar. He put his sweat from the walk home from school on the turntable, sweat that pours from everywhere now. He reached in his pocket and put some lint on the turntable, lint which his fingers found as he searched for maybe a lone dollar or even fifty cents that slipped his mind, to ease his hunger half an hour earlier. He did find a penny- and it went on the turntable. He put various “No”s on the turntable, that if one were a “Yes,” it would lead to epiphany, direction, and passion. He found his potential and placed it on the turntable, potential that hid from most everybody, even him, like the sun glinting out for just a few seconds on an otherwise cloudy day. He put y=mx+b on the turntable. On the turntable, he put his morning erection. The one that would lead to thoughts of any one of his three crushes. He put hey hey mama said the way you move and please allow me to introduce myself on the turntable. He put the disc jockeys from the rock station on the turntable, knowing such life was not for him. He had seen enough of WKRP to learn that. He put the brewing pustule on his left shoulder on the turntable. On the turntable, he put his name. A name that made every cut for basketball except the last because one parent overstepped. He put his best day on the turntable– a three-and-a-half-hour cab ride in a famous steam locomotive on an Indian Summer day. The turntable got a heavy dose of wisdom - wisdom he wasn’t receiving but sensed other boys his age were getting; something he ached for but didn’t know he did. He thought that might break the turntable, but it never even slowed down. He put the distant sky stained with rainfall and the smell of campfires on the turntable. He put white stripes on the highway rushing under wheels on the turntable. On the turntable, he put “Stay sweet and have a kick-ass summer”. He put his excellently forged signatures of Peter, Paul, Ace, and Gene on the turntable. On the turntable, he put his exhaustion. Everything on the turntable finally congealed into a black vinyl platter - no label in the grooveless center, just smooth darkness with a hole. The boy drops the needle down. Out from the speakers comes, ‘no, no, no, it ain’t me, babe, it ain’t me you’re lookin’ for… babe’ – a song he’ll like when he’s older, but today, for many reasons, is quite above his head.
©John Jordan