The Comedy Director Considers Suicide

by Norman Prentiss

Already dead inside
I planned a drive to the lake
to pitch myself in. But first
I tidied up the room,
closed the hotel window,
when--at that very instant--
a body fell right past
and slammed onto the sidewalk.
And so my depression was cured.

A true story, structured
the same as a joke. Take Two.
What if I'd stepped outside
five minutes sooner, so
the guy would land on me--
do I break his fall?
or does he kill us both?
Either way, it's good
for a laugh, a belly flop.

Take Three (the Rule of Three):
I'll go for realism,
let the body bleed
in bright technicolor.
Without comedy, I might
stress there's always someone
with better cause, to jump
from a higher floor,
to beat you to the pavement.

Except that I am done
with serious scenes. My epic
about the discovery
of anesthesia--
a metaphor for my films
that numbed the public's pain--
the studio cut it, released it
mangled past repair.
It was, of course, a flop.

© Norman Prentiss, 2004

Norman Prentiss has published essays on gothic and sensation literature in Victorian Poetry, Colby Quarterly, and The Thomas Hardy Review, and his poetry has appeared in Southern Poetry Review and Baltimore's City Paper. He will also have a story in the forthcoming horror anthology, Tales from the Gorezone.