The Late, Late show

 

November 12, 2012, 6 P.M.

UConn Co-op Bookstore, 2075 Hillside Rd, Storrs, CT, Lewis Turco Poetry Reading.

 

THE LATE, LATE SHOW

 

                       It is now ten minutes after midnight,

                December 5th, 1965.  In honor

                             of the attack by the Japanese

                                    on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on

December 7th, 1941, all channels

 

                       are running movies about war.  On one

                channel, the come-on is newsreel footage of the

                             bombing inserted into a film

                                    made by the Japanese.  Channel

9 has topped that: also Japanese, the movie is

 

                       science-fiction: the Third World War is just

                beginning.  I'll take a gangster film — Channel 3:

                             it sounds incredible, but the third

                                    world war is already over

over here.  This one is American.  Let me check

 

                       the T. V. Guide: "'Five.' (1951).

                The only five survivors of atomic war

                             revive man's ancient hostilities

                                    and prejudices."  The whole thing

is starting again.  So I have turned to writing this

 

                       poem as I watch.  I have survived one

                Armageddon; I shall build a microcosm.

                             I am writing very carefully:

                                    the woman is pregnant, and the

Negro is building a house.  I want my facts to be

 

                       accurate, in case this is the last thing

                to be left.  The sounds do not matter, only the

                             sense.  If you are reading this, I hope

                                    that it will not upset you, sir,

whoever you are.  It may be that my typewriter

 

                       was hocked, passed peacefully from dark shelf to

                dark shelf in ancient shops until it was sold for

                             scrap.  Grant us this: that was possible.

                                    But if you should find this lying

rolled in my machine, the letters of our alphabet

 

                       scrambled in the dust, grant us this much more:

we foresaw the end too clearly for it to matter.

 

Lewis Turco, from

 

Garnet Poems

An Anthology of Connecticut Poetry Since 1776

Dennis Barone, ed.; Dick Allen, fwd.

Collected in 

Fearful Pleasures: The Complete Poems of Lewis Turco 1959-2007, Scottsdale, AZ: www.StarCloudPress.com, 2007. ISBN 978-1-932842-19-7, cloth; ISBN 978-1-932842-20-3, paper.