Conspicuous Presumptions

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    Conspicuous

    Presumptions

    Recent Poems

    Terry McCarty

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    Conspicuous Presumptions

    Recent Poems 2012-2014

    Terry McCarty

    McCarty Press

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    Copyright 2012-2014

    Terry McCarty

    All rights reserved.

    Thanks again to PIP Printing

    in Burbank CA.

    Poems within are either

    fictional or reality-based.

    For Steve Baratta

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    Contents

    Amarillo 74

    I am not ready to wear

    my fathers face

    Three memories of being...

    Twitter poem

    Other side of the street

    Living in the conversation-free

    city

    Italy travel poem

    Berlin travel poem

    I remember Montreal

    Found poem inspired by

    Andy Gill book about Bob Dylan

    Listening to Syd Barrett...

    Dont feel bad poem of

    poetry venues past)

    Finish line

    Bonus Poems:

    1% Poem

    Runaway Boy

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    AMARILLO 74

    The bus is waiting

    Everything out of the motel room

    Where I lost a sort of virginity

    Spending a night with people

    Other than family.

    Quick breakfast.

    Then take off my right shoe

    To make sure

    The rest of the money

    My father gave me

    Is still there.

    Look across the street

    At the convicts in City Jail

    Using a mirror to flash

    SOS signals at the girls

    In our high school band.

    The bus is waiting.

    I wish I could stay.

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    I AM NOT READY

    TO WEAR MY FATHERS FACE

    when I was much younger

    people would tell me

    how much I looked like my father

    now I'm older

    hair grey on the sides

    less of it on top

    elasticity of youth

    gone

    instead there's a hard, determined

    certainty

    making me look as if I wear

    suit and tie every day

    ready to pass someone

    to the next grade

    or approve or deny their loan

    but I'm not Authority

    no matter how I look now

    I'm not ready

    I don't think I ever will be

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    THREE MEMORIES OF BEING

    A COLLEGE FRESHMAN

    IN THE FALL OF 1977

    ONE I lived in an efficiency apartment

    just a half-mile away from college

    instead of having my tea bag

    steeped in the water of dorm life

    and being all by myself

    wasn't all that good

    for growing up (in retrospect)

    even though it gave me time to study

    without interruption

    TWO remembering the moment

    during men's orientation

    when the university adviser

    who later became a judge

    encouraged social fraternity membership

    because sorority women

    were good-lookin' women

    and the adviser actually went on to

    call them all that nice hide

    didn't join a social fraternity

    THREE had a closet in my apartment

    big enough to put a twin bed in

    and would listen to WXRK

    clear-channel AM Top 40 radio

    coming from the Mexican border

    until I fell asleep,

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    waking up at 6 a.m.

    to get ready to play

    the game of

    Parking Lot Musical Chairs

    so I wouldn't be late

    for 8 a.m. classes

    and have to borrow

    someone else's notes.

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    TWITTER POEM

    Twitter's a bit like a rope line

    at a movie premiere

    most of us

    are behind that thin barrier

    waiting for the Stars

    to walk past

    so we can say something

    they might find interesting

    and/or funny enough

    for them to follow us

    the way we already follow--

    and retweet--them

    it's the digital-age equivalent

    of getting a signed autograph

    instead of a rubber-stamped

    publicity photo

    when the Stars

    don't walk past,

    we talk to each other,

    sometimes exchanging follows

    and discovering

    we can be almost

    as fascinating

    as the Supernovas

    who may or may not

    acknowledge us

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    OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET

    if I had been across the street,

    I would have heard the helicopter,

    plus the sirens of the LAPD cruisers

    on each side of me and the dozen-or-so

    actors and crew members,

    and ordered to put hands behind my head

    stay at curbside or else

    the camerapeople on my side of the street

    wanted to keep the video rolling

    although none of this reality

    would have been usable in the project

    unless they wanted to keep a audiovisual

    record in case crew members

    got hurt--or worse

    all of this was for a stolen shot

    on a location there was no permit for

    as actors playing low-level criminals

    whipped out pistols loaded with blanks

    after the mess was over,

    I didn't want to be a volunteer crewperson

    on that project anymore

    the student who drove me back to AFI

    lectured me about how I wouldn't amount

    to anything in the business if I quit

    he talked about the epic film

    he planned to make

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    after years of giving the business

    what it wanted

    maybe he'll make that film someday

    but at the time,

    I thought about not wanting

    to risk being dead at 29

    because of someone else's decision

    to play one-dimensional chess,

    get the shots and finish the scene,

    believing everything would turn out fine

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    LIVING IN THE CONVERSATION-FREE CITY

    'Surely the point of living in a city is that

    you don't have to talk to anybody. That's

    certainly a big part of why I moved to one'-

    -commenter on London's GUARDIAN

    website

    it gets old after awhile

    everyone around you

    not talking

    except on smartphones

    and then there's the chill

    when you do speak

    and the person

    you're speaking to

    says few words

    with colorless smile attached

    as if you're either

    a perceived threat

    to personal space

    or a waste of

    valuable not-listening time

    only interrupted when

    the train reaches the station

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    ITALY TRAVEL POEM

    it's almost 7:00 in the morning

    we arrive at Rome's Piazza del Popolo

    waiting for Violetta the tour guide

    under gray skies

    pelting rain

    as only a few people

    walk to work

    at this foreign-to-me-in-both-ways hour

    Violetta, please deliver us

    from dreariness

    to the padded seats

    of a recent-model bus

    where we can travel

    towards Tuscany

    where ancient churches,

    lunch with wine tasting,

    well-preserved villages

    (with thankfully few cars)

    wait patiently

    in all kinds of weather

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    BERLIN TRAVEL POEM

    In the Alexanderplatz neighborhood,

    Theres the Communist-era

    Department store thats still

    An exterior monument

    To East Berlin rigidity

    As similar buildings nearby

    Undergo obliteration.

    Near the ultramodern Sony Center

    With the giant Lego giraffe

    In Potsdamer Platz,

    A few portions of the Berlin Wall

    Have been allowed to remain intact

    For the inspection of modern tourists.

    May we never forget to remember.

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    I REMEMBER MONTREAL

    I remember Montreal

    when we were at the vegan restaurant

    and I tried the cashier's patience

    by attempting to order our meals

    in bare-bones Canadian French

    I remember Rome

    where a sidewalk vendor sold

    a gelatin figurine which,

    after being flattened,

    would instantly recover its original shape

    I remember Dublin

    opening the hotel window to the

    roar of a late night a capella chorus

    from the nearby Temple Bar district

    after the rugby match ended

    I remember Paris

    where you and I were accidental tourists,

    consuming a nonvegan dinner

    at a Planet Hollywood restaurant

    on the Champs-Elysees

    When were together,

    anywhere in the world is home

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    FOUND POEM BASED ON ANDY GILL BOOK

    ABOUT BOB DYLAN

    verbal artillery trained

    on outsiders passing by

    plus the NYC folk music insiders

    seated at the Table of Bob

    wanting to see inside his mind

    and find out Secrets

    pick up Crumbs

    see if they too can become Dylanesque

    while Bob rubs their noses

    in their opportunism,

    telling them they would never

    be as successful as he,

    then saving the Silver Bullet

    for Phil Ochs--

    suggesting that Phil should find

    a new line of work,

    since he wasn't doing very much

    in his current career

    Phil handled this withering blast

    quite well,

    offering this assessment of mid-60s Dylan:

    ...you really had to be on your toes.

    You'd walk into a threshing machine

    if you were just a regular guy,

    naive and open,

    you'd be torn to pieces.

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    without the clock-punching

    what will the fans

    and the executives think of this

    headaches of 1967

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    DONT FEEL BAD

    (poem of poetry venues past)

    don't feel bad

    we were part of something

    spread out all over town

    making some real friends

    and seeing lots of people

    exposing artistry

    longing for approval

    knowing they had

    something valuable to say

    every night

    there was somewhere

    (sometimes more than one somewhere)

    to go

    then some of us died

    others moved elsewhere

    and the rest found other ways

    to utilize their leisure time

    don't feel bad

    for a few years,

    we had a ball

    before it landed

    on sharp coral

    and began to shrink

    into a small mass

    of rubber

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    FINISH LINE

    here's the finish line

    grab a bottle of water

    from the check-in stand

    breathe in and out

    drink the water

    glad to have made the run

    all the way

    from East to West

    leg muscles cramp

    knees throb

    but I did it

    didn't stop

    didn't call for a taxi

    didn't take the subway

    just kept running

    and now I'm here

    maybe I'll do it again next year

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    1% POEM

    you dug a trench in the sand

    filled it with the foulest water

    threw in lobsters, crabs,

    snakes of all sizes

    and electric eels

    planted barbed wire fence

    all around

    to make damn sure

    no unwashed

    unwanted people

    could share

    with you

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    on your side

    some people eat large slices

    of a small world

    while the rest of us

    wonder why

    you felt justified in

    disfiguring a public beach

    by planting a trench in the sand

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    RUNAWAY BOY

    stand in line

    on movie sets

    select menu items

    in company cafeterias

    sit with acquaintances

    when possible

    and alone

    when necessary

    >

    mark time

    drift from one day to another

    hope everything will fall into place

    without pulling psychic muscles

    >

    bleed inside

    encounter the word no again and again

    when you peck through your shell

    >

    no shouldn't sting and burn so much

    at the age of thirty-two

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    ALSO BY TERRY McCARTY:

    HOLLYWOOD POETRY: 2001-2013

    (Xlibris, book/e-book formats)

    WICHITA FALLS: 10TH ANNIVERSARY

    EDITION (Publish Green, e-book)

    20 GREATEST HITS:

    POEMS 1997-2004

    (Publish Green, e-book)

    POEMS BELOW THE LINE

    (Smashwords, e-bookalso

    available as self-published book)

    ANTHOLOGIESPrint:

    THE LONG WAY HOME: THE BEST OF

    THE LITTLE RED BOOKS SERIES

    (Lummox Press)

    SO LUMINOUS THE WILDFLOWERS

    (Tebot Bach)

    LUMMOX VOLUME 2

    (Lummox Press)

    ANTHOLOGIESOnline:

    theoriginalvangoghsearantholo-

    gy.com

    poeticdiversity.org

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