Uncle Andy's Screenplay

Sketch for Uncle Andy’s Screenplay

Jonathan’s latest poem:



The Voice Mail I Painted on your Brain:

I saw the inside of your flower bed, your neuroblastoma,
Your first unformed words and ideas. It was ugly in there.
I came out with paint under my fingernails and a new idea
Of how smell can reshape your opinion
Of someone you once thought you knew.

Odors fade when you leave the blower on, and so –
The bluster of saints and demons, flying around
Suffering aerophagia – burping, burping – hoping to fly.

Can you tell me what I was painting in there?
Read it back to me on my machine.


The phone rings. Jonathan is in the second bedroom, the study, the office, the place he never hopes becomes the place he sleeps because he always wants to sleep in the big bed in the primary bedroom with Marie. He is working on his latest poem. He can’t help but let the machine take the call. He can’t help but let the machine taking the call creep its way into the poem he’s writing.

“Jan-uh-thaaaaan? Jan-uh-thaaaan? I know yr there cuz yr girlfrenn sejude be home all day. So since yr there, I wanna know, Buster. How’s my screenplay comin’ along? Give me a call. Itsyr Uncle Ayndy!”