Zebulon Huset
On the Doorstep of the Past as if Out of the Pale Blue Sky
Fall, but not. A tease of its breeze sifts through
the manufactured fibers of my cheaply made shirt
& for a moment I’m back home, I’m still here, in May,
but it feels like home, it feels right & okay & I know
somehow I’m not here. I’m rolling along the sidewalk
between shops& it feels like orange oak & maple leaves
could be skittering about my feet at any time.
It feels like Halloween is approaching & at least
a decade has sloughed into nothingness or even better,
into never-happened. Maybe not a full decade, but
maybe more. The eerie tones of the X-Files drifts
through the cool air. Smile. This is the past, a video
reality that is somehow still rolling between reels
in the VHS. Someone hand me a roll of smarties,
some Pixy Stix. I think Blade Warriors is on somewhere,
reruns of Firefly play from some window
even though I’m nowhere near a house. Somewhere
a tetherball yanks the edge of its orbital chain,
one of those two-seated spinning swings
extends its passengers in a centrifuge of fun.
It’s fall, damnit, it has to be, there’s bubblegum
gooey & pink & it’s quite possibly Big League Chew.
The sun’s high & cool & it’s not a drought
but the leaves have turned brown because that’s just
how it is. Somewhere Garfield pines for lasagna
as he hides from pirate ghosts. Somewhere Huey,
Dewey & Louie are adventuring with Launchpad &
Uncle Scrooge most likely desecrating world heritage sites
to the clear disdain of the poor local workers & you know
the Animaniacs are up to their wacky shenanigans
& I’m skating home from the industrial park
where I soaked myself in sweat, trying to lace
a five-forty double grab. Back home I know I have
ramen & peanut butter & jelly or a grilled cheese
at my fingertips & it’s got to be October, but it’s not
freezing yet. There’s no blizzard creeping up,
& it sure as shit isn’t the desert encircled by dry
chaparral & impending wildfires, where the snowpack
is a paltry five-percent of its regular depth.
Somewhere there’s a bag of peanut butter M&M’s,
there’s a movie theater without 3D & no one knows
to miss it. Somewhere there’s time left, so much time
before we get back to this tumultuous present.
Fall, but not. A tease of its breeze sifts through
the manufactured fibers of my cheaply made shirt
& for a moment I’m back home, I’m still here, in May,
but it feels like home, it feels right & okay & I know
somehow I’m not here. I’m rolling along the sidewalk
between shops& it feels like orange oak & maple leaves
could be skittering about my feet at any time.
It feels like Halloween is approaching & at least
a decade has sloughed into nothingness or even better,
into never-happened. Maybe not a full decade, but
maybe more. The eerie tones of the X-Files drifts
through the cool air. Smile. This is the past, a video
reality that is somehow still rolling between reels
in the VHS. Someone hand me a roll of smarties,
some Pixy Stix. I think Blade Warriors is on somewhere,
reruns of Firefly play from some window
even though I’m nowhere near a house. Somewhere
a tetherball yanks the edge of its orbital chain,
one of those two-seated spinning swings
extends its passengers in a centrifuge of fun.
It’s fall, damnit, it has to be, there’s bubblegum
gooey & pink & it’s quite possibly Big League Chew.
The sun’s high & cool & it’s not a drought
but the leaves have turned brown because that’s just
how it is. Somewhere Garfield pines for lasagna
as he hides from pirate ghosts. Somewhere Huey,
Dewey & Louie are adventuring with Launchpad &
Uncle Scrooge most likely desecrating world heritage sites
to the clear disdain of the poor local workers & you know
the Animaniacs are up to their wacky shenanigans
& I’m skating home from the industrial park
where I soaked myself in sweat, trying to lace
a five-forty double grab. Back home I know I have
ramen & peanut butter & jelly or a grilled cheese
at my fingertips & it’s got to be October, but it’s not
freezing yet. There’s no blizzard creeping up,
& it sure as shit isn’t the desert encircled by dry
chaparral & impending wildfires, where the snowpack
is a paltry five-percent of its regular depth.
Somewhere there’s a bag of peanut butter M&M’s,
there’s a movie theater without 3D & no one knows
to miss it. Somewhere there’s time left, so much time
before we get back to this tumultuous present.
Watching Point Break (1991) in 2020
There’s a lot of cheese and happy coincidence,
Keanu being the stony everyman vicarious vehicle
for us dumb, dumb viewers, and it’s a fun ride,
but that one moment when Keanu’d pushed
his injured knee too far and he had the fleeing
Patrick Swayze in the sights of his service
pistol, and he didn’t shoot the unarmed bandit
but instead rolled on his back firing in the air
in a gesture to prove he really did try to kill
the dude he was beginning to have bro-feelings
for, in case the FBI douches who totally didn’t get
surfing thought that he was on the wrong side
after all, some long-con of a college football star
slash secret surfer to infiltrate the FBI and get that
pesky Gary Busey off their trail—or, something.
It was a touching moment of bro-dom back
before this year, whenever the last time I’d seen it.
A kind gesture—the gift of his friend’s life.
And because he shot off a bunch of rounds
the FBI knows he did try to blast the guy
so Keanu isn’t too suspicious, even though
Gary Busey is actually onto him—but beside
all that, in this year where people were being
snatched off the streets by unidentified feds
in the dead of the night for protesting, when
the light of social media forced the blatantly
corporate-sponsored media to focus on all
the people the cops kept killing, it’s hard not to
remember the moment in time, so soon after
the first viral video of a circle-beating by
the boys in blue, when we were so coded
to think the cops would shoot an unarmed,
fleeing man in the back, that we knew they
had to be besties when he didn’t, you know,
murder him.
There’s a lot of cheese and happy coincidence,
Keanu being the stony everyman vicarious vehicle
for us dumb, dumb viewers, and it’s a fun ride,
but that one moment when Keanu’d pushed
his injured knee too far and he had the fleeing
Patrick Swayze in the sights of his service
pistol, and he didn’t shoot the unarmed bandit
but instead rolled on his back firing in the air
in a gesture to prove he really did try to kill
the dude he was beginning to have bro-feelings
for, in case the FBI douches who totally didn’t get
surfing thought that he was on the wrong side
after all, some long-con of a college football star
slash secret surfer to infiltrate the FBI and get that
pesky Gary Busey off their trail—or, something.
It was a touching moment of bro-dom back
before this year, whenever the last time I’d seen it.
A kind gesture—the gift of his friend’s life.
And because he shot off a bunch of rounds
the FBI knows he did try to blast the guy
so Keanu isn’t too suspicious, even though
Gary Busey is actually onto him—but beside
all that, in this year where people were being
snatched off the streets by unidentified feds
in the dead of the night for protesting, when
the light of social media forced the blatantly
corporate-sponsored media to focus on all
the people the cops kept killing, it’s hard not to
remember the moment in time, so soon after
the first viral video of a circle-beating by
the boys in blue, when we were so coded
to think the cops would shoot an unarmed,
fleeing man in the back, that we knew they
had to be besties when he didn’t, you know,
murder him.
From the Canyons of Manhattan to the Steaming Jungles of South America
(an erasure of Roger Ebert’s review for the film “Romancing the Stone”)
It is silly, they say
from Manhattan about New York
who writes thrillers hungry?
lovers devour each other
as the sun sinks over the dead bodies
of their enemies. she is cliff-hanging
just like the ones she writes about.
The writer uses as a form of escape
Throbbing loins—a treasure map
showing the location of a priceless jewel.
What follows is a pleasant memory.
it deserves the comparison, the spirit
and sense of humor of desperadoes.
There are the local police, local thugs,
local bandits, and the local pit full of
snarling alligators for the villains to play with.
There's also a suave local paramilitary hero,
a French Foreign Legion and a rural bandito
memorized in a long series where the desperate
run, run. they both have a better chance if
the leftover sexism doesn't have too many scenes
—It’s entirely about the woman, and the local territory.
Their relationship is their love affair.
We get the feeling the romance
isn't just a distraction.
(an erasure of Roger Ebert’s review for the film “Romancing the Stone”)
It is silly, they say
from Manhattan about New York
who writes thrillers hungry?
lovers devour each other
as the sun sinks over the dead bodies
of their enemies. she is cliff-hanging
just like the ones she writes about.
The writer uses as a form of escape
Throbbing loins—a treasure map
showing the location of a priceless jewel.
What follows is a pleasant memory.
it deserves the comparison, the spirit
and sense of humor of desperadoes.
There are the local police, local thugs,
local bandits, and the local pit full of
snarling alligators for the villains to play with.
There's also a suave local paramilitary hero,
a French Foreign Legion and a rural bandito
memorized in a long series where the desperate
run, run. they both have a better chance if
the leftover sexism doesn't have too many scenes
—It’s entirely about the woman, and the local territory.
Their relationship is their love affair.
We get the feeling the romance
isn't just a distraction.
Zebulon Huset: "I won the Gulf Stream 2020 Summer Poetry Contest and my writing has appeared in FreezeRay, Meridian, The Southern Review, Fence, Atlanta Review & Texas Review among others. I publish the writing blog Notebooking Daily, edit the journals Coastal Shelf and Sparked, and I recommends literary journals at TheSubmissionWizard.com."