Richard Peabody – Three Poems
DeSoto Blues
Every single tailfin
from winged cars of the 1950’s
detaches
like a lizard tail
when junked
skims
scarred
gray asphalt
meets
pointed fins
square fins
lunate fins
down
on Highway 61
to brainstorm
the comeback
a need
for fins
deep seated
2)
Daytona beach
tourists
point out fins
slicing
through
their purview
“shark”
“dolphin”
can’t tell
them apart
spiny fins
mock reality
rise
gleaming
Plexiglas
instruments
of death
and mutation
JG Ballard
would be
so proud
3
plastic surgeons
attach
fins to runway
models
who coast
South Beach
sharply pointed
fins
in their tipsy wake
dorsal fins
pelvic fins
pectoral fins
anal fins
implants
and piercings
Ventral fins
split fins
all the rage
rounded fins
forked fins
soaring
appendages
flashing lights
beneath skin
until beautiful
people
move instead
toward
curious
extremes
the Dimetrodon’s
back sail
Stegosaurus’s
bony plates
or else
reject fins
for vestigial
memories
feathers
mermaids
Revenge of the Creature
Pretty as a coral snake.
Slippery as an eel.
I know better than to make
the same mistake.
But your slick voice
is melodic.
And I’m a sucker
for a song.
Pages from the Purple Book
Mr. Rebound
has a restless night.
Mr. Rebound
goes a wooing.
Mr. Rebound
takes the plunge.
The Reaping.
The singing
of the spear.
The battle and the marriage.
The doom of
Baala-Baala.
Semen and fruit.
Author’s Statement on Beauty
Beauty is the tuning fork of the universal. We seek it out, we feed off of it, and we desire more. We want to chain our hearts to beauty, to possess beauty, hold beauty closer than life itself. Inner beauty runs by different rules. Though I believe beauty is a force, an aura, an inner light, the mind of God, what have you. Both a palpable ideal and a subconscious hunger. We sense it, hold it for seconds in eye of mind or heart of hearts. We can never keep it. Beauty changes. But we know we beheld it. And in retrospect are glad we did. Beauty gives a bump to the soul. And for me these fluid moments are what life is all about.
Beauty is cars with fins, too.
Richard Peabody is the founder and co-editor of Gargoyle Magazine and editor (or co-editor) of 25 anthologies including Mondo Barbie, Conversations with Gore Vidal, and A Different Beat: Writings by Women of the Beat Generation. The author of a novella, three short story collections, and seven poetry books, he is also a native Washingtonian. Peabody taught fiction writing at Johns Hopkins University for 15 years. His most recent book is The Richard Peabody Reader (Alan Squire Publishers, 2015). More at: gargoylemagazine.com.