Poetry Feature
A Radio Caller Praising the Revival
of Drive-In Theaters
Ron Price
for John Waters
I don't break-dance,
don't mosh. I'm country,
and I ain't been to one for years.
What with a wife and kids
I had to change my life,
but I do indeed remember them.
I got my first lay there –
it wasn't my wife,
but it was pretty good.
A cold beer in the heat, a little peace –
well, sometimes I'm an animal –
and now it's back in style.
They still pass out vomit bags?
[A review of Ron Price's collection, A Small Song Called Ash From The Fire (Rattapallax Press, 2001), and an interview with the poet appears in this issue. Ed.]
A Dive-In at the Drive-In
Robert Dunn
Once, I took Nadine in my Mercedes
To see a biblical epic, Tigris and Euphrates,
At a drive-in movie carved into the side of Mount McCain.
We got all settled for the evening's viewing,
Popcorn popping and chewing gum chewing.
When the credits started—unfortunately, so did the rain.
We're not talking here about a summer squall;
The rain came down like a solid wall.
My windshield wipers struggled uselessly.
The movie may've been Oscar-bound,
But the speaker shorted out so we lost the sound,
And what little we saw looked like 20,000 Leagues Under the
Sea.
So Nadine and I said, "What the heck!"
We folded down the seats and started to neck.
We figured we were safe from nosy, prying eyes.
But you can't do that at a biblical flick—
It gets Almighty God almightily ticked.
The screen came loose from the mountain—swatted us like flies.
Miraculously, the car roof wasn't crushed,
So we flipped the seats back up in an awful rush
And tried to escape, though the lot had turned to mud.
We got as far as the manager's shack,
But he wouldn't give us our money back,
Claiming he wasn't responsible for Acts of God.
I politely told him, "The Devil take you, my man!"
Then I found my tires had sunk a cubit and a span
Into the ooze, and no amount of torque would work them free.
We abandoned ship and squelched for our lives,
But the mud was radioactive and gave us hives.
And that Manager wanted us to pay for that speaker—that S.O.B!
That's why I gave up drive-in theaters.
I hate them as much as parking meters.
Either gimmick flips the nickel right out of my pumper.
Now, when I feel the need for some distraction
I hole up in my garage for movie action—
I bolted a VCR to my front bumper.
(Robert Dunn (Medicinal Purposes Literary Review) writes frequently for the magazine. He lives in New York City.)