shalanna

Makeover
by Shalanna Collins

Now stop being difficult, dear;
Of course we have to cut your hair just this way,
Put on makeup exactly so, and wear these clothes,
Yes, even the shoes. What's wrong with you?
Don't you want to look like everybody else?
There now. No, don't talk that way.
Because we don't say those things.
Well, sometimes we do have to lie to be polite.
No, it has nothing to do with your integrity.
Have I ever steered you wrong?
I know what's best for you.
Don't do that. Well, because it simply isn't done.
We've always done it this way. Stick with the tried
And true. That's just good business sense.
No, it isn't like cheating at all. It's nothing.
Do what I say, and you can be a success.
And get rid of these worthless papers. You wrote this?
Oh, please. Who reads any more?
Honestly, what a waste of time.
I'm ashamed of you. You're just not trying.
Don't you want to be normal?
* * *
That poem was in Ubiquity (the web-newsletter of the hi-Q society run by Christopher Michael Langan) and is now on the North Texas Mensa creativity webpage, although I can't find it at the old URL. I've never tried to place it anywhere that they ever REJECT any poems, though.
* * *
Walking by a road at night,
I am afraid he will lie to me.
The river’s rising; I can
Smell the azaleas floundering.
Musty air reminds me of a closet;
I want to air the suits.
I know what I am afraid of.
At nine o’clock in Austin, Texas,
The stores are apprehensive,
Darkening against intruders.
I pull my sweater closer.
I know what I am afraid of.
Water threatens the top of the dam;
It laps over the sides,
And rivulets stripe the concrete wall.
All the bare trees drip.
I know what I am afraid of:
I am afraid he will tell me the truth.
--Shalanna Collins
* * *
Judson Jerome liked that one. It didn't make the cut to get into his WD column, but I got a nice postcard back from my submission. (That has been more than twenty years ago; I think it has been fifteen years plus since someone else took over the column. It may not even run regularly these days. I never pick up WD now. But there was a guy Michael somebody who was really good who took over right after JJ quit writing it . . . he posted this fantastic poem about Lazarus and how people were apologizing to him after Jesus raised him, apologizing for having given his stuff away and having done away with his dog and appointed others to take care of his business already. I wish I could find that one. Can't even remember the title.)

I do remember the genesis of this poem. I was walking by a road at night (grin). It had just rained, and I was thinking about my then-boyfriend, who looked just like Barry Livingston, who played Ernie on "My Three Sons." (Seriously. Not like Barry looks NOW, but like a college-sized version of Ernie as the little kid with the Drew Carey glasses.)

Back then, I was taking a poetry writing workshop (an actual course at SMU). Our leader was professor John Skoyles, who has since gone to teach at Emerson and has published a couple of books that I highly recommend you seek out and read--he's amazing. Anyway, I remembered that he had talked about some of the forms poems take. The question-and-answer, I think this was called. Or reading-and-response. Teasing a secret out from an unrelated question that contradicts itself, or something like that. Don't ask me to remember the details; I've had surgery a couple of times since then, and you sometimes forget some details just with the passage of time.

Another form we explored was the litany. I often see litanies, but people don't call them that. A litany begins with the same phrase over and over. "I will be quiet. I will talk. I will look. I won't close my eyes." And you just go on until you hit something interesting, which I didn't with that off-the-cuff example. Some litanies are quite amazing, though.

Oh, and if you find Judson Jerome's books in the used book store, give them a look, too.