Surreal-Absurd Sampler Glen Armstrong

“I’ve been writing requiems for people I admire lately, some of them fictional, some of them still alive. These folks may have ended up on gum wrappers or Mr. Cobain’s t-shirt or Mr. Zapruder’s movie. They usually share a unique talent that still can’t compensate for a unique and profound sadness. These are a few of those requiems.” - Glen Armstrong

Requiem for Bazooka Joe 

I never said there were gates in the sky.

            The wild canaries just appeared.

            Those were days I never wanted back.

            I intended them as a gift.

            I took off my jacket.

The goats that my neighbors tended,

            as alive in the inch as they were 

            in the mile, ate flowers

            under the train tracks.

The older boys in my gang

            never used the word “love” 

            without a hyphen:

            They’d be off playing their “love-trumpets”

            or collecting “love-fuzz.”

I never took much stock in their stories

            until one night,

            drunk on Tickle Pink,

            Mort perfectly described

            diced love-onions 

            stewing in chicken broth.

Occasionally, not often, those boys

            were right on the money.

Requiem for John F. Kennedy

It’s not a rendezvous or birthday

if I don’t get caught

licking my fingers.

Or maybe it is.

We attempt to deliver the requested 

burgers and fries

to the domed structure

where the astronomer works,

but we cannot find the door.

There are no ugly men,

only ugly thoughts  

and unquestioned context.

So you see, a harsh musk hangs 

in the capital’s air for decades,

and maybe the Johnson

administration failed to take

the ancient Hittite spell

to exorcize the Pentagon

as seriously as it should have. 

Maybe this astronomer 

has the telescope focused 

on something other than the moon.

Requiem for Daniel Johnston

The mind, as well, wants

what the mind wants,

distraction for example

or rest.

Testing.

Testing. Is this thing

(on?)

High culture and cholesterol 

team up just

as surely as Doctor Doom

and the Red Skull

combine 

their forces 

to find that airplane key,

the one

that will unlock 

a ghostly dimension.

All they manage

to steal is a photograph

of George Harrison

dressed as a rabbit.

In the end

true love uncaps

a felt-tip pen

and can’t help

but lovingly recreate 

that picture of George.

Glen Armstrong holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters. He has three current books of poems: Invisible Histories, The New Vaudeville,and Midsummer. His work has appeared in BlazeVOX, Conduit, and Otoliths.