H
e a r t S o n s & H e a r t D a u g h t e r s of A l l e n
G i n s b e r g
N
a p a l m H e a l t h S p a : R e p o r t 2 0 1 4 : A r c h i v e s E d i t i o n
SHARON MESMER
What
Happened To The Women Of Country Valley?
I loved the women of Country Valley.
And I know what happened to them.
At least I think I do.
I was a youth back then,
jonesing for a corgi,
and my thoughts of
love were long, long thoughts.
At least that’s what I think I thought.
It happened when I was on the
Merry-Go-Round.
It was an apple-green evening in Country
Valley.
There was Susan, gray and faithful
handmaiden,
and Miss Cornelia
walking briskly along,
and Anne of Green
Gables with goo all over —
a gusty group of
daffodils on the old, mellow lawn.
They wore shiny space dresses gathered at
the ankles
by elastic cuffs
which extended over red glowing boots.
On their arms were large silver gauntlets
with flared arm
coverings
extending halfway up
their forearms.
I was the one they hypnotized.
I looked up and found myself
in a magical
spell-weaving place:
the women of
Country Valley
had let a highly
excited, disobedient boy
loose upon their
spaceship.
I don’t need hypnosis to recall this.
Memory erasing methods don’t work on me
anyway.
Their spaceship looked like the most
beautiful Legos,
Legos too
beautiful to be made by humans.
It was decorated with fancy menstrual cup
pouches
made of antique
brocade fabric from Japan.
Miss Cornelia turned to me with a smile
and said,
“Can you believe this is just an old RV
that became a Lego
spaceship in our minds?”
Then I had the weirdest thought:
“Wouldn’t it be something
if the Fonz
suddenly appeared?”
The Fonz could yell at Potsie
from the comfort of
his spaceship
floating high above the
earth!
Then the spaceship lands on the roof of
SCTV,
leaves some cabbages,
and takes off again!
Come on, who wouldn’t want to spend
alien Christmas with
the Fonz
on a spaceship
hiding behind the Hale-Bopp comet?
Maybe then all the mysteries would be
solved,
like how come that
"Footloose" dude
never actually cut
loose?
Then something bad happened:
a horde of evil
monsters that looked like Flipper
rampaged down the
peaceful mountains
led by evil Uncle
Unicorn
who had the
frightful ability to deliver swift flying kicks.
Anne of Green Gables got kicked first
and I cried, “Damn
you with all the speed of the red bruchetta
that Geddy Lee's
mother gave him!”
I swear to god, if I was Jesus,
I would have killed that unicorn
everytime he directed
an episode of “The
A-Team.”
All I would’ve needed was Anna-Nicole’s
dead body,
many sixes of
Genesee Cream Ale
and a Bard College
sweatshirt from the college bookstore.
But then the Fonz really did appear
with his army of
anthropomorphic ducks
who fight aliens
with hockey gadgets
in t-shirts that
say “Milwaukee To Bronze The Fonz!”
It was the highest level of mutancy
that someone as
sensitive as Fonz could achieve.
How potent was the Fonz in combat?
No god in the world could’ve beat the Fonz.
I'm in Seattle right now, in a youth
hostel,
sitting in a room
crying.
The Army doesn't want anyone
to know what
really happened.
Why must the Fonz
continue to be denied
any type of fame?
Since nothing will be done about this
at the government
level
I guess we really will have to
defend the Fonz
ourselves.
I don’t live in Country Valley anymore.
I live in Silicon Valley.
Um, no I don’t; I live in Florida.
Okay, I live behind Emu Mountain.
But I still love the women of Country
Valley.
I think I always will.
At least that’s what I think I think.
[Originally
published in NHS 2008, http://www.poetspath.com/napalm/nhs08/Sharon_Mesmer.htm.]