CELEBRITY: AN ELEGY

I walk my street slow enough to guess at what my neighbors watch

next door I think I see Kate Middleton interviewed on the screen and wonder why my neighbor spends Sunday night with the famous

what could my neighbor want to know about a stranger?

does my neighbor care Kate Middleton hasn’t seen my neighbor speak onscreen? do the famous also wander streets

look in windows out of need to know their neighbors better

a need to write a stranger’s story or need to weave stray lives together? on Sunday night

my neighbor sits at home happy not to be Kate Middleton

happy getting to know Kate Middleton

instead of wandering streets

my neighbor gets to know the famous without the intrusion of getting to know the famous

not intruding at the Palace door

a house call on a Sunday night

and what if I rang the bell?

would my neighbor wonder

what I want to know

am I dangerous

what kind of person walks the street on Sunday night ringing stranger’s bells? it’s Sunday night

I should be home wondering what others are doing

what someone famous is doing

Kate Middleton

what are you doing? are you wandering intruding wondering what your neighbor watches

walking slow enough to get to know your neighbors without them knowing

what do you want?

what is so important?

what couldn’t wait for Monday? you must be dangerous

there must be something wrong with you to want to know on a Sunday night what someone else is thinking

I WOULD LIKE TO WRITE A POEM AS LONG AS CALIFORNIA

Or to inflate California

Dreamin

Like a firework

Baby, you’re a firework

Feel it in the air

On a dark desert highway

Cool wind

Knows how to party

If everybody had an ocean

It’d be easy

I could love

A rich Eastern tourist

Nothing scares me anymore

Not even sand in my fries

Everyone says hi to me

Ketchup smiles back

We haven’t had that

Spirit here since

At least Memorial Day

Long empty bodies

Buried to the neck

Some dance to remember

Some dance

Happy

Universal

On such a winter’s day

I got that summertime

Melt your popsicle

Hair up real big

I’m stealing a fry

I wish you would

I wish they all could be

It’s been so long since I’ve seen the ocean

PATRICK GAUGHAN is a poet, performer, and critic. He writes about contemporary performance for HowlRound & about cultural ephemera for Blunderbuss. He is writer & director of the plays FAST FIVE (2014) & TODAY (forthcoming, 2015).