“Does the Conga Line Measure Up?” © Mark Blickley
A Fake Poem about the Life of James Buchanan
Glass rat shatters James Buchanan’s sleeve
into a thousand smoke blue backrooms
while the porcelain girl
with the pronounced nose
scatters ashes from up in the beech tree.
I have known her since the summer by the sea
when she came ashore with the marines.
This was long before Admiral Farragaut
gave up his commission in the navy
and stationed himself with his back
to the dust of dinners and diners at Delmonico’s,
his Saint-Gaudens brass balls set,
seeking the ships of further waters. Ahoy!
James Buchanen was just a secondary
figure in the comic books back then,
neither a hero nor a villain, soon
to be superseded by Batman and Scooby Doo.
I will have to place a footnote on his grave.¹
This however is a poem about a large glass rat
and blue smoke and many packs
of Gauloise Blondes that were chain smoked
along Canal St. Martin by a bunch of kids
who cared nothing for Saint-Gaudens
in a time before this poem was written
and therefore had no access to my footnote
and hence had zero knowledge
of the hilarity that was James Buchanan
who was really nothing more than a cause
for a footnote and poem title.
Porcelain girl in the beech tree I have loved
you longer than Orpheus’s theatrics.
The thing is, in spite of everything
that I’ve said, I’m forward looking.
¹James Buchanan’s grave is at Woodward Hill Cemetery in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Buchanan was known for his slapstick pratfalls in the antebellum era that divided the fans of the cheap and lowbrow (i.e. the Ha Ha Gag followers of Molière and Stephen Foster). He appeared in comic strips of that time as a fun loving, flying kite Nosferatu of little consequence. Buchanan descended into near oblivion until he appeared in Jack Spicer’s A Fake Novel about the Life of Arthur Rimbaud directed by Sam Peckinpah. Rimbaud signed with MGM after the film. Buchanan, not as charismatic and relying on esoteric routines that only appealed to the gang that surrounded Nachman of Breslov and Stephan Jonas, became close friends with discredited members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Obviously Rimbaud is buried behind the Charlieville post office. James Buchanan built that post office.
John Greiner is a writer and visual artist living in New York City. He was educated at the New School for Social Research. Greiner’s work has appeared in Antiphon, Sand Journal, Otoliths, Survision, Sein und Werden, Empty Mirror, Sensitive Skin, Unarmed, Street Value and numerous other magazines. His books of poetry include In An Attic Palace Beneath a Slaughtered Sky (Arteidolia Press), Circuit (Whiskey City Press), Turnstile Burlesque (Crisis Chronicles Press) and Bodega Roses (Good Cop/Bad Cop Press). He is a 2024 recipient of the James Tate Award for his chapbook, Clouded Saints and Kinky Shadows published by SurVision Press.
Mark Blickley grew up within walking distance of New York’s Bronx Zoo. He is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild, PEN American Center, and Veterans For Responsible Leadership. The mantra for his creative life comes from the pen of Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa, “Life is a shitstorm, in which art is our only umbrella.”