CASPER
THE FRIENDLY GHOST
The Bodies
It was during the famous hongerwinter—a time of dearth, enjoyed by all—
that I first felt my heart go a-boom-bang-a-boom-bang-a-bang in a dune
on the island of Texel, where I was hoping to take a new lease on life,
my old one having recently expired and gone down in a big blaze of legalese.
In a little wooden hut whose roof had long let in on ropes and old harpoons
and a shelf of lanterns rusting, I constructed a desk—as Dutchmen do—
from new bits of driftwood from long walks by the waves, then attached
a dead bulb to the ceiling with rope, alluding thereby to a poem I once wrote.
The North Sea boomed and banged that night as I churned out draft after
draft of my will until my head was a hell of the orphaned and ill, pleading
Pleasesirmesirpleasesirmesir like bullets intent upon my total destruction ...
I curled up on the floor underneath my new desk and tried to recall my dear
Marketa's voice, Your dinner's in the dog, it's in the dog, woof woof, that way
she had of calling me from deep down there at the bottom of our house which,
being so tall, one-window-thin (unlike myself, I'm fun-sized!), had me feeling
as I descended the stairs like Self-portrait of a Man with Paintbrush and Luger,
such would be my joy at love's anticipation—that laddish lock of hair she had,
with its refusal to be tucked away neatly behind the ear in which she suffered
from tinnitus, or the clippity-clop of her two clogged feet as she dashed—
onion-eyed—from the sink to the stove with the lungs I so loved in her red hands ...
Bang! went the wind, Boom! went the guns until my brain had begun to inspiral,
prompting me to think, Uh-oh, here comes Dr D if I am not mistaken and me
with my will uncompleted ... Boom-bang-a-boom-bang-a-bang went my heart,
as I've mentioned already. Next thing I knew? I was living in suburban New Jersey
where the girls all—V for Victory!—had bodies like the lovely Jayne Mansfield's.
It was during the famous hongerwinter—a time of dearth, enjoyed by all—
that I first felt my heart go a-boom-bang-a-boom-bang-a-bang in a dune
on the island of Texel, where I was hoping to take a new lease on life,
my old one having recently expired and gone down in a big blaze of legalese.
In a little wooden hut whose roof had long let in on ropes and old harpoons
and a shelf of lanterns rusting, I constructed a desk—as Dutchmen do—
from new bits of driftwood from long walks by the waves, then attached
a dead bulb to the ceiling with rope, alluding thereby to a poem I once wrote.
The North Sea boomed and banged that night as I churned out draft after
draft of my will until my head was a hell of the orphaned and ill, pleading
Pleasesirmesirpleasesirmesir like bullets intent upon my total destruction ...
I curled up on the floor underneath my new desk and tried to recall my dear
Marketa's voice, Your dinner's in the dog, it's in the dog, woof woof, that way
she had of calling me from deep down there at the bottom of our house which,
being so tall, one-window-thin (unlike myself, I'm fun-sized!), had me feeling
as I descended the stairs like Self-portrait of a Man with Paintbrush and Luger,
such would be my joy at love's anticipation—that laddish lock of hair she had,
with its refusal to be tucked away neatly behind the ear in which she suffered
from tinnitus, or the clippity-clop of her two clogged feet as she dashed—
onion-eyed—from the sink to the stove with the lungs I so loved in her red hands ...
Bang! went the wind, Boom! went the guns until my brain had begun to inspiral,
prompting me to think, Uh-oh, here comes Dr D if I am not mistaken and me
with my will uncompleted ... Boom-bang-a-boom-bang-a-bang went my heart,
as I've mentioned already. Next thing I knew? I was living in suburban New Jersey
where the girls all—V for Victory!—had bodies like the lovely Jayne Mansfield's.