By Ronald Koertge

Skull Island was the only home I knew. The natives worshipped
us.
Mom would hold me up and they would bow down.

When she died, I tore up a dozen acres of jungle. I buried her
myself,
and that was tough. Now what ?

I guess I wondered what was beyond the fog that always shrouded
Skull Island, but I wasn’t about to swim out and look around.

I remember Mom sitting down with me every afternoon, teaching
me words like shrouded and asking me to use descriptive
language

in my essays. Before she’d send me out to play she’d say,
“These lessons might not serve you on this island, sweet pea,

but maybe on another. There’s always room for a well–rounded
individual in any society.”

By Ronald Koertge

Last night I dreamed someone slept beside me
smelling like turnips and smoke.

Victor, as you paid the grave robbers did you know
that the heart they stole was liable to break?

I see the villagers brandishing clubs and torches.
I hear them shouting, “Frankenstein! Frankenstein!”

It’s you they’re after, Victor. Packing all their imperfections
into something like me.

By Megan Grumbling

After Buster Keaton’s 1920 short film One Week, in which just–married Buster and Sybil are given a build–it–yourself house kit by the villain, who has tampered with the numbers on the crates.

Oh go ahead, young newlywed, just try
to fit together this whole bad luck lot
the bad guy slipped you. Frown and furrow, scry
your manual, stagger and cant each slat
as per the numbers on the boxtop. Hold
fast — ladder, chimney — hug, heave, hoist. Use all
the parts. Shingle and nail. Saw off you own
pine two–by–four perch second floor — but fall
to ad hoc front yard heaven, common bliss
amidst the jury–rigging, quick wise crack
of Sybil’s grin, her homespun camp–smoke mess,
warm hobo breakfast waiting. Then, climb back
to trap–hatch planks and pulleys, elbow grease
against the rafters, hammer, piano, safe
in freefall. This whole schtick is serious
comedy: Duck! Bend from the knees! Hold on!
But then, hold up: This time the villain’s rigged
you good. Step back: Not even close to flush
or square, flayed funhouse framing all at odds

with sense and gravity. But ah — the blush
of Sybil, guileless vandal drawing hearts
freehand, sweet black–paint vagrance on the cheap–
ass pre–fab clapboard, on an urchin lark
of leveling, of work and love. No need
is quite as true. So come bad weather, rain
in parlor, reckonings, cyclones and spins,
the whole hang–dog shabang stuck on the train
tracks, then — look up. See how the fix is in
the failing. Fail. Leave it at that, right there,
rail–side and splintered. Rise, turn tail and leap
from smithereens to shrug, slough, swear
off all bad guys and false directions. Keep
what’s on your back; get out of Dodge. You’ll come
upon some better gifts. Head down the line
now. Sure, the bad guy switched your one
to four, your three to eight, but you’ll soon find
someplace, finally, for good, where you’ll alight,
write Welcome upside down, but spin it right.

By Jack Foley

I am tempted to write a film script
Called QUESTIONABLE BEHAVIOR.
In this script people would do things
That were legal but unethical.
They would profit at the expense
(Pun intended) of others.
Nor would the questionable
Behavior be limited to the characters.
I should like to point out
That writing a film script is a prime example of questionable
behavior.
Look what it did to F. Scott Fitzgerald.
And not only writing a film but producing one (Think of Harvey
Weinstein)
Or directing one
(Think of John Ford, “The only man who could make John
Wayne cry,”
Or of Alfred Hitchcock, who was asked by a Concerned doctor,
“Are you trying to KILL
Tippi Hedren?” The answer
Was probably yes.)
Need I go on about the lives of actors?
I mean the successful ones, leaving
Aside the ones who fail or who achieve
(In Jimmy Carter’s wonderful phrase) only “limited success.”
How many suffer heartbreak or hopeless dependency
On drugs? How many become total drunks
Who were once sensitive, intelligent people?
How many become crazies like Marlon Brando
Or tragic heroines like Marilyn Monroe, Peg Entwhistle, and Jean
Spangler?
I know of two
Who murdered their wives
And then themselves.
Better to find
Something else to do,
To stay in the darkness of unfame
In a nice house
With plenty of DVDs
And a pretty girl or boy
Who has strong arms, a great smile,
And talented underwear.