DayGlo Dice Roll #1: Synthwave Blue
The Rev. Shaw Moore, that uptight preacher from Footloose
happens to run into Andie from Pretty in Pink and things don’t go well
because he can’t deal with a woman who knows herself
because you can’t give a baby Jolt Cola
because sycamores don’t grow upside down
because a tree can hear itself fall in the woods just fine without you
and so he runs away and hitches a Delorean ride with Christopher Lloyd,
headed for the current year, but Doc gets the numbers all wrong
and Rev. Moore winds up alone, stuck in the hot 2025 Phoenix, Arizona sun,
screaming inside of a glitched-out Tesla that won’t open from the inside.
End scene.
Go to the Movies Tomorrow
So, go to the movies tomorrow dressed as a priest;
take as much time as you like to find your seat:
act addled, unsure of society while the lights are still up.
Dither about like you’ve all the time in the world,
and make sure everyone else in the theater
has fully seen you or at least noticed you
out of the corners of their cellphone-hostage eyes.
Mumble so quietly that you can barely hear yourself;
be so meek that even you don’t know what you meant
by the thing that you just said in something like a whisper.
At some point, someone will have had just about enough
of your inability to locate where you are meant to sit,
and when she comes up to you, close enough that
you can smell the butter on her breath and softly asks you
if you would like some help, that’s exactly when
you want to start screaming and looking wildly up at the lights.
Anyone can do this, but it really should be you.
Better bring some mace or a knife in case the theater turns out to be
a theater in America somewhere.
Conceal a weapon; be ready to lift up your voice to the Lord.
Rich Boucher resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Rich’s poems have appeared in The Nervous Breakdown, Eighteen Seventy and The Rye Whiskey Review, among others, and he has work forthcoming in Cul-de-sac-Of-Blood. He is the author of All Of This Candy Belongs To Me.
Peep richboucher.bandcamp.com for more.
