Friday February 15, 2008

POETRY BY
Ricky Garni
© Ricky Garni 2008

Friday 15-Feb-2008 13:56

RETORT MAGAZINE ISSN 1445-7164

A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC

When I conducted a Viennese symphony orchestra recently, I got it all wrong and things went terribly bad. It was Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, and I just kept blowing it. Here’s why: I was a little depressed and distracted because of the world. And it got worse. That’s because 1st chair violinists do not have a lot of diplomatic skills. When I was thinking my sad thoughts and not paying much attention to Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, I started drifting a little and things got pretty loosey goosey and 1st violinist let me know it. And, being 1st chair and all, he’s kind of a big-man-on-campus kind of guy and so when he misbehaved everyone else got up and started misbehaving, too. “Frauline Olga! Not you, too!” I pleaded, a little crestfallen. I had always thought that if I could depend on anyone in this world, is was 2nd chair violinist Frauline Olga whose golden ringlets cascaded to her soft, porcelain shoulders.

But no, it was Frauline Olga, too.

Here’s a list of what was broken and on the floor after I blew it with Eine Kleine Nachtmusik:

1) 110 brown folding chairs

2) 20 or so china saucers that had been filled with rich, Viennese coffee

3) my feelings for golden ringlets that cascade to soft, porcelain shoulders

4) the world

5) my heart

CURRICULUM VITAE

I was hard at work today, and my work involved
a lot of sentences that had exclamation marks in
them. I thought to myself, “How strange, my work
involves exclamation marks, but my conversations
don’t. I will certainly walk outside and say to Betty,
‘Hello Betty. How are things?’ rather than ‘Helllooo
BETTY!’ because there is no reason to say that. Still,
I get paid good money to write using exclamation
marks. Perhaps after working so hard there is no room
left for more of them for me as I go to the grocery
store. “These bagels appear FRESH!!!” I should say,
but I am not working anymore, I am at the grocery
store. Unless I worked at the grocery store. The
cashier is wearing black and orange striped knickers
and she looks like a real prostitute!

SQUID

I have given
a great deal
of thought
as to why
they are
removing all
the guts from
that squid on
television.

I think it may
be all we have
left in the world
which has disappeared
except for the squid,
the knives, a few
men and a camera

And I guess a television
transmitter of some sort.

And us, too. The viewers.
It’s the day of the
Mark of the Beast
and all that jazz. All
gone, like last drops
milk from a baby's cup.
So, If that’s it, that’s that,
then we certainly don’t need
to see squid guts. Let’s go
out for an ice cream
cone. Oh, that’s right.

Well then, let’s see what’s
up with the squids.

GRANDMA

I always shied away
from Grandma
Moses. It’s because
I was shy and because

I didn’t think it was
right that “Grandma”
and “Moses” should
be in the same name.
It's wrong and funny.

What can I do?
Either laugh, or worship
her. But I don’t like

Her paintings. The first
ones she mounted in
drug stores. Not sexually.
She was a woman of
faith. I didn’t mean

To suggest...

I don't kneel near paintings

And it's hard to pray
in drugstores

"Her primitive paintings captured
the spirit and preserved the scene
of a vanishing countryside..."

Before the sea parted and the
countryside disappeared

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE:

QUESTIONS I SHOULD HAVE ANSWERED IN 1968 BUT I KEPT PUTTING IT OFF UNTIL I ‘HAD THE TIME’ TO ANSWER THEM, WHICH, IN RETROSPECT, WAS PROBABLY A MISTAKE

How does it feel to be one of the beautiful people?
It’s funny that you should ask. It really doesn’t feel as good as you might think.
Nice restaurants that serve exotic dishes are usually drenched with oil or salted butter and then, with all the drinking, you tend to feel fairly queazy later on, and then even though you are sleepy (alcohol is a depressant, after all) your sleep tends to be restless and not very fulfilling. And then, just imagine thirty years of this. Actually, you get to feel pretty bad.

Did I mention that I am also pretty deep in debt? I mean, even if you are beautiful, you try to be more beautiful, and then someone tries to be more beautiful than that, and the next thing you know, you can’t afford to be more beautiful than that, but you are not about to admit that.
Not to anyone but Citibank, a urologist, etc. Oh yeah, that’s the other thing. Venereal disease.

Now that you know who you are, what do you want to be?
First of all, I don’t know you I am. I like to think of myself as Superman, flying across the heavens, but I can’t get the image out of my head
of George Reeves lying on a springboard with a fan blowing on his face and with back lit clouds behind him filmed in rotoscope. Also hard to
forget that he was born in Woodstock, Iowa.

And have you travelled very far?
Once I went to Woodstock, Iowa.

How often have you been there?
Once.

What did you see when you were there?
OK. So I really haven’t ever been to Woodstock, Iowa. I haven’t been anywhere. But you can be beautiful and never go anywhere.
Did the Bronte sisters go anywhere? No. But they wrote elegant, beautiful immortal works of literature.

(Unintelligible question)
You’re right. Charlotte Bronte was kind of a porker.

Now that you found another key, what are you going to play?
I have always thought that the best thing to do when you find another key is to play the same old song again in a different key.

Kind of like, if you will let me mention Superman once more, that great episode called THE HUMAN BOMB when he jumped out the window with a stick of dynamite. And then every time for the next seven years that he jumped out the window it seemed like
he had that same stick of dynamite in his hand. “Yep,” he sighed I think, “one more goddamn window, one more goddamn stick of dynamite.” To tell you the truth, being beautiful is no fun at all.

Friday 15-Feb-2008 13:56

RETORT MAGAZINE ISSN 1445-7164

Ricky Garni
© Ricky Garni 2008

Ricky Garni is a writer, piano player and graphic designer living in Carrboro, North Carolina. His most recent publications include TAJ MAHAL REVIEW, IOTA, KULTURE VULTURE, DMQ REVIEW , UNPLEASANT EVENT SCHEDULE, and OPIUM MAGAZINE.