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greatest hits2008-2011terry mccarty

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BEHIND YOUR CURTAIN

Behind your curtain

was a stage flat

that looked like a brick wall.

As time passed,

the brick wall became real.

You used to bless me with teenage smiles.

Then the smiles came to an end

and everything I did

got on your nerves.

So, I closed my curtain

and knew better

than to step out for encores.

A few years ago,

I visited a restored home

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in West Los Angeles.

The owner had a curtain

in his living room--

pulled open to reveal

a picture window

enabling a view

of a flower garden,

a small swimming pool

and a guest house.

It's the kind of sight

you would have loved

in the year

when we were both fifteen.

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WHAT HENRY FONDA SAID

The "I know just what he meant" moment

came as a result of reading a paperback book

of Larry King interview transcripts.

Henry Fonda was on Larry's show

(think it was the radio one)

and Henry said something about how children

are wonderful actors

when they play games

such as cops and robbers

until the age of eight or nine

when they start being self-conscious

each time they fall down.

For me, this epiphany didn't occur

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until I entered

the seventh grade

(junior high was only two years in our town)

and was made to realize

that older children existed.

And each time I fell down,

I became extremely self-conscious

because the audience watching

(and sometimes laughing)

was bigger than it used to be

when I played superheroes

or cops and robbers

or international spies

and no one cared at all.

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HIDING IN THE NINETIES

It seemed like a way to control the uncontrollable:

Rise from the single bed in the tiny apartment

Few people besides me entered

And go out into the Angeles sunlight

With the invisible armor,

Almost no spoken words,

And no smile

Although once I was tempted

When the woman sharing the elevator

With me at the Wilshire Ralphs

Asked me if I liked gourmet chocolate

And I was afraid to say too much

Because, although I was attracted,

I thought she wouldn't like the person

I thought I really was.

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POEM FOR ARNOLD--NOTES ON A FAILED CAREER MOVE

It seemed liike a good idea in 2003--

get rid of that grey-haired, hot-tempered

hectoring middle-school principal of a governor.

Gray Davis was his name.

It was a grey-flannel name that,

in the words of the time-honored cliche,

came direct from Central Casting.

You tried to go PG-13

with that 2-Arnolds-for-one

clone movie few people saw.

It was clear from test screenings

that TERMINATOR 3 was no TERMINATOR 2.

And your dignity probably couldn't stand the idea

of playing Yul Brynner's old robot-gunslinger role

in a remake of WESTWORLD

for less than your usual salary quote.

So what other choice was there besides Governator?

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Hell, look what it did for Reagan.

I'll pass over the last seven years in silence

except to say that you found out the hard way

that there are two kinds of leaders

subject to legislative gridlock:

Liberal (aka Progressive) Democrats

and

Moderate Republicans.

It was your curse

that you chose to walk through

Door Number Two.

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HOSTILE ACRES

I help till the soil at Hostile Acres.

Almost everyone carries a gun except me.

Tried to learn once.

Almost shot my big toe off.

Some people came looking for work the other day.

Didn't take long until the hired hands began talking:

"They're taking our jobs."

"How do you know whether or not they're American?"

"Make them carry IDs."

"What about injecting digitized guest-worker chips under their skin?"

"Let's just tattoo a citizenship barcode on their forearms."

And so on and so forth.

Then a few shots rang out.

This is what I heard a few minutes later:

"It was a lone nutcase with a gun."

"The nut's still alive."

"No, he's dead for sure."

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"Thank God we can carry guns in public for protection.

The maniac got dropped

and we just let him bleed out."

"There was a little boy caught in the crossfire.

Don't know who shot him.

Don't know how he got hit."

Next day, we heard the President

on the field radio

saying that, at the very least,

automatic weapons should be banned

from use by the general public.

A chorus of disapproval:

DON'T TAKE OUR GUNS AWAY!!

NO GUNS, NO SAFETY!!!!

WE'LL BE KILLED FOR SURE!!

HE'S NOT OUR PRESIDENT!!

And so on and so forth.

Then I heard a round of gunfire.

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The radio was destroyed immediately.

The overseer yelled:

PUT AWAY YOUR GUNS!

And we went back to work

tilling the soil at Hostile Acres--

happy to hear nothing

except the sounds of our own voices

voicing the beliefs

we don't need education for

because we know how right we are in our guts.

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watching you write

sometimes I cant read the words

you are writing

on the yellow legal pad

as a part of therapy

for your post-aneurysm brain

sometimes I can read the repeated letters

and fragments of words

and wonder

what you are trying

to say

your mind can still speak in complete sentences

but the process of translation

from brain to hand to pen to paper

is far from precise

and when I dont understand

and the process of writing begins again

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I pray I get your meaning this time

for your sake

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY POETRY

Bachelors and spinsters

working at paycheck-to-paycheck jobs

during the day

go home, change their clothes

and go out into the spoken-word night

as either Zeus and Hera

or King Herod and Salome.

I'll let you decide which.

TWO

In a movie called SEMI-TOUGH,

a minor character had this line of dialogue:

INTELLECTUALS ARE THE JOCKS OF THE MIND.

I can remember hearing about those acclaimed muscleminds

who kicked sand in the faces of puny poets:

YOU'RE NOT NEARLY GOOD ENOUGH FOR A FEATURE!

Some of them quietly bandaged their wounded egos

and later became the literary equivalents of

Charles Atlas and Cory Everson.

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Others gave up

and just came down to the water's edge

to stare at the day's latest

sandkicking spectacle.

THREE

I was at a coffeehouse

run by a saber-toothed tiger

when I saw this:

a poetry host

(who just wanted so so much to belong)

was run over by a more acclaimed poet

who graced the open-mike

for what seemed like ten minutes past eternity.

Since the poetry host

wanted so so so much to belong,

he swallowed his pride and discomfort

and let the esteemed poet

off with a mild caution.

Suffice to say

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the esteemed poet

finished his poetry

at his own convenience--

not that of the host.

FOUR

We posed with plastic penguins.

We read from the stages of punk/rockabilly clubs.

We looked for positive writeups about ourselves

in OC WEEKLY.

We even wore bathing suits

for fund-raising calendars.

And we took comfort in our certainty

that we were better, faster, stronger

and far more literate

as poets and as people

than those amateur poseurs from Los Angeles.

For we were forged in the crucible

of being laughed at and dismissed

during our day jobs

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by good Orange County Republicans

who keep their Bush/Cheney bumperstickers

forever affixed to their oversized SUVs and trucks-on-steroids.

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES POETRY AS I KNEW IT

When there was an El Nino storm,

people still went out to poetry readings.

That was 1998.

NEXT magazine was the beacon

telling you where to find the word banquets.

And the first place I went

was the Midnight Special Bookstore

on Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade

because it was listed in NEXT.

Politics in the air at Poetic License.

Poems with "Free Mumia" messages.

Lots of fingersnaps for a line or even a word.

People filled with strong notions

of what was right and wrong.

Just about every reading

was filled to capacity.

And it was easy

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to find readings

every night of the week.

It was also possible

to make acquaintances

and real friends.

In those days,

people weren't always worried

about being Published.

You could go to Kinkos

and print your own DIY chapbook--

breaking even by selling it to other poets

at readings.

Went to the Rose Cafe

and was exposed to poetry as Disciplined Art.

Long introductions for features

and open readers told to return

next week when time ran out.

(Eventually, the Rose Cafe

became the template

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for most readings in Los Angeles and Orange County today.)

Those were the days

before venues and readings closed,

gasoline prices climbed,

popular poets and hosts moved out of state

or left the Earth entirely,

remaining poets began feuding

and a quiet movement began

to encourage uniform standards of quality.

raise the bar for booking features

and discourage the kind of open mikes

that attracted musicians and comics.

For some, this was a great notion

Oracles said that it was good for poetry.

I heard phrases like "layers of meaning"

used ad nauseum.

And other poets said not to complain

about changes in the scene--

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or other poets themselves.

For it was perceived as

causing the entire scene

to suffer grievously

from intemperate words.

And today, there are fewer venues.

And just a few poets with power--

some of them use it more generously

than others.

Recently, there was a rainstorm

in Santa Monica.

It wasn't as strong as an El Nino.

And people did come to the reading--

but not nearly as many

as on a torrential night

thirteen years before.

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CRYING MYSELF AWAKE

I don't like tears and

the struggle to breathe.

But there I was

at eight o'clock in the morning

Thinking of schoolyard bullies,

overloaded work schedules,

Perfect plans for the future

that dissolved the following day,

Obsessing over how I helped make

bad things happen to me,

Forgetting how I helped make

possible the best of my life today.

You see me crying.

You pull me close.

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And I'm quick to say

that none of this

Has anything at all

to do with you.

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SYMPATHY FOR CHARLIE SHEEN'S DEVILS

Please allow him to introduce himself.

He's a man with wealth and no taste.

He destroys hotel rooms,

frightens women

and leaves New York in haste.

Hope you guessed his name.

Amusing you on a sitcom

is the nature of his game.

He earns a lot for not acting.

More money than what's paid to others.

When he makes a big big mess,

he's bailed out by CBS and Warner Brothers.

Hope you guessed his name.

Employing publicists to tell "official" stories

is the nature of his game.

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There will be

no HOT SHOTS THREE.

Just more hookers, anger and psychic pains.

If he feels the need to stretch his talent,

he'll make another ad for Hanes.

Hope you guessed his name.

Keep watching TWO AND A HALF MEN every week

so he can continue playing his long-running game.

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FOLK MUSIC AS WOOLY MAMMOTH

PRESERVED IN ICE

(inspired by the PBS fund-raising special

JOHN SEBASTIAN'S FOLK MUSIC REWIND)

Did you see old man John Sebastian

on the Public Broadcasting System?

He now looks a little like George Segal

and sounds a lot like Peter Coyote.

Did you see old man Barry McGuire

singing EVE OF DESTRUCTION?

He now looks like a retired WWE wrestler

and wears NYPD patches on his black T-shirt.

Did you watch this tribute to old folk music

in the comfort of your home

as people protest and die in far-off lands

and American media propagandizes

about the evils of WikiLeaks

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and the perfidy of Julian Assange

(the timing of the latter is rather convenient)?

Did you once gather for communal singing

and peaceful demonstration

until you "grew out of it"

because too many people told you

that standing up for the rights of others

was passe and not likely to lead to good job offers?

Of course you did.

And I did too.

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EXTRAS ON THE BEACH

It was a summer night in 1990.

We had just finished work

on the feature film version

of CAPTAIN AMERICA

starring J.D. Salinger's son

Matt the actor.

(Guessing you haven't seen it either.)

There were five of us.

I was thirty-one.

Two other men in attendance:

one was older, the other younger.

And two young women

in their late teens.

Nothing too scandalous to report.

The other four drank

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from a six-pack of beer.

I abstained.

Then the two young women

took off their shoes and socks

and walked into the water

as a perfect South Bay sunset arrived.

It was one of those rare good days

when I wasn't worrying

about who I should be

and where my life ought to be.

And it was that other kind of rare day

where I didn't mind

not having jobs lined up

for the rest of the week.