Poetry: Psychedelic Bingo (2035)
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| *Psychedelic Bingo (2035) _________________________ |
Psychedelic Bingo.
The Paisley Palace. Bingo
Black light
special. An android with dreadlocks
Calling “O-69”
Just another number, an acid trip
Gone mild. Mellow
Yellow. We are old –
Hooked up, tied
down, turned over. I ain’t gonna work
On Maggie’s farm
no more. Hookahs, posters, rock
Music. Heavy
metal, blues, jazz, rock
And roll,
colliding like numbers in a Bingo
Cage. I ain’t
NEVER gonna work
No more. Neon,
strobes, Warhol Depends, locked
Wards. We know
secrets, secret obsessions over sold-
Out riffs,
long-dead songs. Rifts. A Zappa freak trips
Over rolling
stones, I.V’s dripping into veins. A trip
To the john, now a
journey through Haight-Ashbury. Rocky
Mountain High. A
path so worn, so molded –
But a man still
forgets his way. “Bingo!”
Shrieks a woman on
table three, her gray locks,
Frizzed and
snarled, shaking like Joplin’s. She works
At sliding numbers, gives voice to others. I’ll work
It all out, honey.
Ancient as hell. A trip
With Generation X,
a quest: a body locked
Into arthritis,
loose bowels, erratic beats. “Rock
Me, Baby!”
screeches from the loudspeaker. “Bingo!”
Yet another
winner. Grand prize, pieces of gold,
Gilded like Elvis
on velvet. God, how I dread his old,
Tired thrust. Swap
it for new. I wanna work
On Maggie’s farm once more. Bingo,
Even psychedelic
Bingo, sucks. Acrid trips
For the soured:
distant gyrations, silent drums. Rock-
A-Bye, Baby, blown
away in the wind. Locked
Away in a big
brass box, next to a locket –
Dulled. Eleanor
Rigby, alone, always alone – cold,
Waiting for her
name to be called – I wanna rock
With Sgt. Pepper – paints Woodstock by number. Fretwork:
Now done. Bad
vibrations: gone. No more trips
To the Clinic, no
more flashing lights. Bingo:
Psychedelic Bingo.
Listen for Doors, that last blackout. Lock
Up Purple Haze;
trip with Witch Hazel and Sister Grace. Bold
work in
Surrealistic Pillow all rocked
Out,
lady, out.
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“Psychedelic Bingo (2035),” © copyright 2003 - present, by Jennifer Semple Siegel, may not be reprinted or reposted without the express permission of the author.
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