a visitation from the man in the teevee in poetry

As a kid, you eat candy on Halloween and then probably get cavities down the road.
As an adult, I got a cavity drilled on Halloween and don’t get to eat any candy at all
because I have to be low-carb now just so they won’t have to chop my feet off when I’m fifty.
And I’m just saying Peter Pan may have had an idea there, not growing up.
I’m just saying here.

Having worked feature film sets in the past twice
in what feels like another life
it is weird to be nominally on the other side.
Not locking down sets from randos for the Brandos
being out with the civilians walkie-talkie-less.
The guy who played Jim on NBC’s “The Office”
was doing two days of location shooting
for his new horror movie on the Main Street
of Little Falls because it turns out that
if you want to have a spooky abandoned decrepit
cityspace you don’t have to change a whole lot
about Little Falls to look like a ruined ghost town
so yay us?
Put up some ripped flags and some dirt in the streets
voila et voici
movie magic.

It tickled me to see
the little yellow-and-black plastic signs
with the production’s working title and arrows
to tell the crew where to park
that you’d see every day when I lived in L.A.
for one time just one time in the Littlest Falls
and I really wanted to steal one as a souvenir
blazing yellow and black “Abbot” sign in my attic
but I’m not a mischevious little boy anymore
I’m a responsible man now.
And I’m just saying Peter Pan may have had an idea there, not growing up.
I’m just saying here.

Driving home from the dentist
passing the lookilous and the lookilouises that stood in the rain
queued up to see if the gods in the teevee set
actually wear flesh from time to time.
I guess I’ve walked both sides and believe I held stride
held stride fetching cigarettes for the rich and the famous
held stride being an actual person as well
at least I think I have.
Still, the whole thing makes me feel more even more
liminal than I usually do, I suppose.
I’ve walked both sides of the line and
it’s weird to see people so concretely
think they’re only on one side or the other now.
There are no gods or monsters or ones or zeros
males or females or xes or ohs, nothing completely so
but it sure looks like it when you’re watching
the Olympic gods and goddesses briefly touch breezes
shared with lookielous and lookielouises
it was easier maybe to think such distinctions did really exist
between the sotten Earth and Never-Never-Land
like that lucky little Peter Pan.

I had an idea for a horror movie about a small town
that feels exploited by a horror movie filming there
at the end of the Halloween season
and then the crew starts disappearing
maybe the ripped-off owner of the local motel
who got shafted on the crew’s group hotel rate
is out for blood and popcorn in NIGHTMARE ON MAIN ST.
It’s funny but it’s way too meta
they’d love it in New York and L.A. but
no one here in the flyover would care to see it
except in the town where it filmed
and all they would care about
was seeing the places they really live
up on that big magic screen
and they’d feel like gods for a little while.

Either way, I wouldn’t even get to eat Twizzlers at the show
so that when I’m fifty the doctors won’t cut off my toes
while Peter Pan gets to eat peanut butter forever
at least in the movies he does.