PhillySound: new poetry

A hurricane report 9-18-03: TD


Duck: I usually love the rain.

Lemon: Yeah, me too; when it comes to rain, I don’t complain.

Duck: When I came home tonight a big black, white, and blue FOR SALE sign was ripped right off the building laying flat on the sidewalk in front of my place.

Lemon: Well, it’s this storm. It sure blows real hard, don’t it?

Duck: Yes. Yes it does, but why do you say it like that?

Lemon: Like, what?

Duck: Like people?

Lemon: I don’t have a problem with that. I like how they say certain things, even though I don’t think and so haven't thought about how much they might, which is my way and more really than I can say.

Duck: Is that where you learned to talk like that?

Lemon: Well sure, yes, you know.

Duck: Yes, you're like the Lemon who heard too much; but what did you hear?

Lemon: Even the sign blown off your wall reminds me of all the completely insane kids who built forts all day on my tree and just destroy the fuck out of what they’ve made as soon as they made it. Scraps of wood and crap and everything everywhere below the tree.

Duck: I know those kids.

Lemon: After that they'd pelt each other and everything else with lemons: the lemon aid storms of my youth.

Duck: They tried to hit us with you too, but we flew.

Lemon: There’s flying when you want to fly, and flying when you’ve got to haul it and go. Even lemons, lemons flying in every direction all over the place, know that.

Duck: Some luck, pluck, and knowing when to take flight and duck!

Lemon: It makes me squelch to think about it.

Duck: For me it does and doesn't. In a way it's amazing to think about.

Lemon: Yes, fair enough, to think about.

Duck: Even beyond thinking too. All the lemons hitting everything in every which way, like dexter gordon hitting all those low, low dexter gordon low notes--burr, burr, bury, mischief burrrr, a kind of turn on.

Lemon: What? (The lemon's whole body facing the duck, as if to look, first confused, then warmly.) Gosh, I could take that another way, but here I think I know what you're saying. (Long pause). It’s nice to find you. Well, I’ll tell you, but that’s all I'll tell. It's true, it's easier that people don’t listen.

Duck: (Nodding and leaving a trace of webbed muddied foot prints on the floor.)

Lemon: I figured that out one day, actually in one day.

Duck: You should be more like people then. I mean, when comes to listening. Take when you can and get.

Lemon: (rolling over on its side and rolling back closer to the duck) I don’t care if they do. I mean, what would I say?

Duck: With ducks it’s different, we’re just catching up with what we already know.

Lemon: Yes, I’ve said that many times. It's what I’ve always said.

--Tom Devaney