Poem: Celebrity

Deconstruction is very hip, so why not deconstruct celebrity?

Celebrity Celebrity seems a hungry mouth to feed, a demanding child that wails, stamps its foot and screams for its fifteen minutes at the top We were promised that, expect it now, even if Lennons and Kennedys must fall A mirror-image would bring it all back down A comforting deconstruction, car bombs to candlelight The supermodel barefoot in a faded robe, a Pulitzer Prize for guys who walk the dog An understandable order, once more from the top Agreement to settle for five good friends to mourn a death or celebrate a birth No helicopter-headlines, just drop by A conversation sitting on my floor, don’t call, your hug is all the celebrity I need Without a Script Not a public execution, I’ve no right to stand with sword in hand, your neck at my feet I take the right, make no excuses Uncredentialed, it’s just the way it is So many ghosts in life, I’m just one more Following from day to night and back again, there’s no need to slash at one another My Douglas Fairbanks leaps a balcony, meets your Errol Flynn, knife clenched in teeth, somehow never masking that famous smile How does he do it? How do we and they? Without rehearsal, no cut and no retakes? I don’t want all your life and time, just all of you when we’re together, but ghosts get in the way, fighting up and down the staircase of our minds Not stumbling, as we do, but coming point-to-point, thrust and parry, in endless choreography Your sword nicks me, high across the chest Blood soaks toward my heart, we come together, face to face, conceding one another’s pain Then spring apart, my blade slits the purple silk above your breast, exposes, barely touches skin I’m bleeding, you’re unmarked, catching breath Am I above you on the stair? Can’t recall the script Is this the scene, the time you take my life? Not your neck that’s at my feet, but mine How can it be, my hand holds the blade? Lens pulls back, long shot in soft-focus One stroke, then just another of the ghosts, untitled, unrehearsed, without a script.

This poem is included in Jim Freeman's poetry collection CORNER OF MY MIND available here in print or as an e-Book in your favorite formats.