Dear Reader,
The following is merely an exercise I created to get the words to flowing.
No t-shirts were harmed, or intended any harm, in the writing of this blog post.
Meanwhile, poetry smokes Gitanes in the alley, asking if I’m done pissing around with paint and wallpaper.
Not yet.
Poetry rubs its forehead against mine and when I write a poem tonight, eyes fried, it slips back into the shadows, poetry, flips its collar, and says “That’s what I’m talking about.”
I watched a video on the history of the t-shirt recently. It said a soldier wore one on the cover of Life magazine, I think, and then Marlon Brando as Stanley popularized them, and then, of course, James Dean.
I’ve been to the James Dean museum. It’s worth a look. There’s a cool letter by him there to his young cousin Marcus, who had sent him drawings.
Jim had feelings about these. He wanted his cousin to choose his subject carefully.
Which is good advice for any sort of artist.
Marcus lived in Indiana, in James’s words, “…land that is greatly blessed…”
What do t-shirts have to do with poetry?
You tell me.
Shall I speak of blank white shirts (ok, Plain White Tees) that beg for words, or worn thin as a milk mustache on the body?
I want two hours on either end of the morning now, Word Raccoon and I do, for peak writing, tee or no.
I have a sun visor/surround for my computer now so I can see my screen better. It reminds me of the social studies fairs I used to win ribbons at every year, those trifold postboard affairs. I still have all of the ribbons, though I don’t know where the trophies went.. Which is why I entered it mostly.
Once as a teen I dated a guy (ugh, why him?) and he saw my wall of certificates and ribbons and said I must be smart.
He decidedly was not.
Then he asked me how much longer before I finished my math homework.
He wore t-shirts and smoked.
Everyone asked, Why, Drema?
I wondered that myself before telling him to
take a hike.
I returned his gifts, and we swapped back shirts he’d bought us.
He’d misspelled my name on the one he wore.
I never told him he had, but when we broke up,
I threw it away.
Word Raccoon says she would like to get back to regularly scheduled poetry and all that she’s been missing during the home decor updating.
My poor baby. I hear that.
dremadrudge.com 