WHEN DEATH COMES, IT WILL HAVE YOUR EYES
(Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi )
I once knew a man
who knew a man
who had seen
F. Scott Fitzgerald
drinking a milkshake
in a drug store
(vanilla or chocolate
he couldn't be sure)
flicking idly
through a magazine
( no he didn't know
which magazine )
in the company of
some blonde.
"I'll never forget
what he said!"
"Let's go to the supermarket
Shelia!" he said.
And that's it?
"That's it!"
His voice caressed
each syllable
as if
he were on stage.
But he was like a man
becoming a manakin
like in that episode of
The Twilight Zone
you know the one?"
In a future that had as yet
to happen.
"I don't know what I had
expected..."
The man who knew the man
who knew the man
who had seen and heard
F. Scott Fitzgerald.
"Maybe a Gatsby or
a Gatsby
who had survived the novel's
tragic ending
and wished
he hadn't!"
***
Here now
at home
Mr. Fitzgerald
sits in his armchair
eating a chocolate bar
checking out next year's
Princeton
football team.
suddenly like a puppet
yanked on a string
he stands up
hand on mantlepiece
like some bad acting
in a silent movie
before falling
to the floor.
He will never
get up.
***
Nick and Gatsby come
stand by his dying.
So do Monroe Stahr
and Kathleen Moore
even though
words fail them.
Yet they now
more real than he.
Monroe reads
some last scribbled lines.
"There was a flutter
from the wings of God
and you
lay dead.
Your books
were in your desk I guess
and some unfinished chaos
in your head
was dumped to nothing
by the great janitress of
destinies."
Gatsby
closes his eyes.
Jul 24, 2019
Jul 24, 2019 at 5:50 PM UTC
WHEN DEATH COMES, IT WILL HAVE YOUR EYES
(Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi )
I once knew a man
who knew a man
who had seen
F. Scott Fitzgerald
drinking a milkshake
in a drug store
(vanilla or chocolate
he couldn't be sure)
flicking idly
through a magazine
( no he didn't know
which magazine )
in the company of
some blonde.
"I'll never forget
what he said!"
"Let's go to the supermarket
Shelia!" he said.
And that's it?
"That's it!"
His voice caressed
each syllable
as if
he were on stage.
But he was like a man
becoming a manakin
like in that episode of
The Twilight Zone
you know the one?"
In a future that had as yet
to happen.
"I don't know what I had
expected..."
The man who knew the man
who knew the man
who had seen and heard
F. Scott Fitzgerald.
"Maybe a Gatsby or
a Gatsby
who had survived the novel's
tragic ending
and wished
he hadn't!"
***
Here now
at home
Mr. Fitzgerald
sits in his armchair
eating a chocolate bar
checking out next year's
Princeton
football team.
suddenly like a puppet
yanked on a string
he stands up
hand on mantlepiece
like some bad acting
in a silent movie
before falling
to the floor.
He will never
get up.
***
Nick and Gatsby come
stand by his dying.
So do Monroe Stahr
and Kathleen Moore
even though
words fail them.
Yet they now
more real than he.
Monroe reads
some last scribbled lines.
"There was a flutter
from the wings of God
and you
lay dead.
Your books
were in your desk I guess
and some unfinished chaos
in your head
was dumped to nothing
by the great janitress of
destinies."
Gatsby
closes his eyes.
WHEN DEATH COMES, IT WILL HAVE YOUR EYES(Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi )is of course the wonderful poem by Cesare Pavese.
Monroe and Kathleen are from Scott's last and unfinished novel THE LAST TYCOON.
I also knew a guy who knew a guy who peed beside Richard Brautigan. He was so in awe as to who was at the next ****** that he peed all over the top of his shoes.
