Godzilla: King of Monsters
Will Vincent
dear Diary I’m sorry okay?
you guys I’m in this plane
fresh off the wet tarmac
rubber asphalt little tugboat car machines
luggage haulers extending pistons spilling oil
you can almost see the time lapse
yellowed in sepia in some drug movie or biopic
about a band we’re not allowed to say we hate
the musicians ascend from garage to stardom and drugs again
I don’t know Philly well enough so I won’t attempt to name it
so look Diary this movie is on
I’m watching and writing like Dodie did with the TV Sutras
now I’m thinking of Kevin
who passed and there’s a million obituaries all over the web
but I should do something
like a Spicer marathon-reading
where we march whomever to read the collected
over empty barstools
it will be sort of mostly cute but briefly profound
as the wind catches in the doorway and fills everyone with feeling
so look Diary you doom-sayer
Coach Tim Taylor is in this one
clear eyes blue hearts live forever
the blue light of the giant lizards’ tank
bathes his human skin
he looks serious
the rules of football are complicated
he’s in the bottom of the 9th
4th and down down
he’s got his son in the end zone for a Hail Mary or surely we’re all lost
he’s figured that with certain computer-generated frequencies
he can talk to the titans
but use the wrong frequency and you’ll be responsible for 1,000 San Franciscos
Coach Clear Eyes Full Heart Tim Taylor vs. Godzilla King of Monsters
it’s the clear gloomy tale of our now
I’m scared sad and my heart beats me awake
there are children assigned to me
the orca talks to the other titans
Mothra and the gang
I’m sitting between a mother and her daughter
they don’t want me to move
I stink and I know it
they’re fresh off an early action prospective visit to U Penn
she wants to be a nurse get going early take all the necessary pre-reqs
she wants to do something real and pragmatic and good
even at least although
she keeps cutting me off by putting her earbuds back in
she complains about the length of the flight and looks out at the sky
in shades of black and gray
looks out at this special angle of sky we get in airplanes
for 500 to 2,000 dollars and a few 1,000 gallons of super-flammable jet-fuel
I should at least be happy for her
she seems depressed but they all do
she’s at Berkeley High
her mom’s got six NY Times articles printed out thinks Warren’s unelectable
she’s a lawyer
I’m sweating coffee
my cousin was married
he sort of scowls at the world and complains about unions
he says the men working on the highway look lazy
what can’t you do with a giant caterpillar after it cocoons
Timmy Taylor says something is going to come out bigger and meaner
the Stranger Things girl has convinced a gaggle of the others that humans are a cancer
I don’t have taste for it
my body done deteriorate
brain too
I call it a wound
I hold slides up to the light
they’re gels of my mother in the Colorado River
I hold it up like a rich interior thought unspoken unpunctuated
held up in the brain
uttered to no one
I learn to write it down a little less sloppy
the machine gun fire sprayed willy-nilly at the impenetrable husk of the thing
Monster Zero he’s the big bad frozen in miles of ice at the South Pole
my cousin’s a climate denier a genuine anarchist
he says the deer are so easy when they come out into the soybean fields at dawn like that
they walk out dumb and mute
careful not to shatter the frozen earth
maybe everyone on this plane is reading what I’m putting down
like I do maybe sometimes with strangers
let’s see if there’s not at least a little justice here
the teen tells me 30% of her class went to the climate march
the others just wanted to cut and that’s okay
one of the monsters is just a big whale
our nukes and earthquakes awakened the titans
diary I’m still motivated by teen urges
even when tasked with corralling teens into some dim
understanding of the English language
wow I feel the wind and I’m still corny for sunsets
men larger than me lift me above their heads in my dreams
my feet kick weakly
I turn my fist into a gavel and bang the side of my car
like it’s the law or the future
Jesus Christ Diary what am I Holden Caulfield?
trying to save these kids from the knife edge
I’ll solve this poem with Google
the communists in my twitter feed disapprove of me I just know it
poetry makes nothing happen but what does? the gun? the debate?
Mothra is waking up
this will be a zine
I’ll give it to all the techbros at BART
Monster Zero is a lightning-breathing hydra
the mom next to me says she wants Trump to end
Trump has appointed 25% of the fiduciary she says exasperated
it’s going to get worse
we will lose more
take action on your depression
be like Godzilla
