The 1950s

Four of them are already here:
Rock, Roll, Beat and Nik.
only Daddio
only Daddio
only Daddio has yet to appear.

Rock’s mad
lookout he’s steamin’.
nobody talk to me
he says.

Oh Beat coos Roll oh Beat Beat Beat.
Roll aches to slice Beat’s cheek
with her diamond fingertip.
Beat wants to cut his tongue
on Niki’s’s diamond tit.

Niki dreams of atomic bongos.
atomic bongos and pinko poets.
pinko poets
and dancing……… cigarettes.

Rock hears voices Beat speaks in tongues.
God lies on a hospital bed
no air in his lungs
no feeling in his legs
no air……………. in his lungs.
.


Four of them hunker in the fallout shelter:
Rock, Roll, Beat and Nik.
only Daddio has yet to appear
only Daddio is missing and presumed……………. alive.

Daddio is dead
Daddio is red
Daddio is a traitor
Daddio has amnesia
Daddio’s a fugitive from biblical justice
Daddio sold secrets……………. to Russia
Daddio rots in a Mexican jail
Daddio has polio
Daddio likes Ike
Daddio’s a figment of mass hysteria
Daddio’s nothing but words these words
Daddio’s nothing but words that crawl out of the Black Lagoon
Words that evaporate before they are read
Words that change
Words that change
Words that change …….the world.

Beat watches World War Three
broadcast live on black and white tv,
the future flickering
flick flick flickering
flickering on the wall.

Rock reeks of cheap brown whiskey.
Niki smells of crème de menthe.
Roll paints the shelter black.
Beat turns on the radio.

Four of them listen to the radio
Rock Roll Beat and Nik
Only Daddio has yet to appear
is that a voice in the static they hear,
a secret in the lyrics,
a clue in the music, and a code in
the call letters tuned to
“the radioactive comedy hour
with the musical stylings of U………… 235
and Her Glowing Isotopes”???

Wait. Just a moment, just a moment. Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt this program to bring you a special bulletin: Fiction has run out of happy endings. It is being reported that the last two happy endings were used by the 1955 best sellers, Peyton Place and Auntie Mame. Henceforward, story tellers who wish to end their tales happily ever after must reuse someone else’s happy ending. Stay tuned for further updates. We now return you to our regular programming.

“the musical stylings of U…. 235 and her Glowing Isotopes.”

and the filament of the cathode tube burns a white conspiracy
where Daddio plots and flips his Zippo open and strikes its flint
in one snap as Niki’s heart
becomes a torch in which Rock stares
to find the truth.

And Daddio is the flint in the Zippo
and Daddio is the white hot filament
in a cathode tube too hot to touch
in this cathode tube
alone.


Blind Rock pounds the keys the keys, blind Rock pounds the keys. He clacks double coded tales on unending scrolls in hieroglyphic scars that spell out stories we cannot………….. understand. These are tales of sedated housewives desperate for happy endings who sauté poison mushroom clouds, of bebop basements and heroin driven improvisations, of a world without heroes, of criminal compulsions to go to go to go and never…………….. to stop.

Beat puts a shot glass on Niki’s head. Don’t move he says hold still.
Hold still hold still hold still hold still hold still hold still hold still hold still. From 20 feet away he aims……………… a .22. Lighter fluid hangs in the stiff air.

With an atom bomb under each arm, sweet dead Daddio enters the room, Daddio enters the room.