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Today's poem is by Tom C. Hunley

Men Are From Marvel; Women Are From DC
       

Worst. Therapy. Couch. Ever. I got off
my stool at The Android's Dungeon
for this? Allow me to introduce myself.
My parents named me Jeff Albertson, but
throughout Springfield, Gotham, and Metropolis,
they call me Comic Book Guy.
Gosh, idiot (Napoleon Dynamite reference),
um, yes, that's my crime-fighting alter-ego, and
This C:/Dos/Run/Run/Dos/Run tee shirt serves
as my costume. Tights don't suit me.
Neither do suits (too tight.)

There's simply no emoticon for the feeling
coursing through my veins, powerful as Pon Farr,
the Vulcan Blood Fever (reference to Spock's
need to breed, a rather obvious corollary to my own
overdriven loneliness). Ever since Kumiko split
on me like a favorite pair of jeans, I feel like
I'm beached beside the half-buried Statue of Liberty
(original Planet of the Apes reference,
damn the remake all to Hell).

My life is like an Alf rerun that I can't
shut off. I thought I could figure this out
myself. I have an IQ of 170. I translated
Lord of the Rings into Vulcan for my
Masters thesis. But I guess the brain and heart
are as far apart as Kelly Clarkson and the ability
to carry a tune (invocation of Simon Cowell,
though not a reference per se).

Even Spiderman sometimes needs someone
to untangle the web that he weaves (that's right,
I can reference Shakespeare too). I get jealous
of statues when pigeons land on their heads.
I feel lonely like Alaska, lonely
like an O.J. Simpson fan site.

I could have gotten married, online, in a
role-playing game, but I didn't want to deplete
my power crystals. I'm starting to see
that even Radioactive Man, Manboy,
and The Adventures of Mr. Smarty Pants
are just pulped trees, inkstained,

and Kumiko and I are two old oaks. The crime I can't fight
is the sad fact that wind rattles us, that every year
our leaves leap, beautiful suicides heaped on the ground,
that my limbs snap from the effort of reaching
to touch hers, that Time is a cold voice yelling "€śTimber."€ť



Copyright © 2016 Tom C. Hunley All rights reserved
from The State That Springfield Is In
Split Lip Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission

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