PAYLOAD FROM POETRIA
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
Synopsis 1
O Captain, My Captain, what ever happened to you, my Captain? Captain Marvel, my comic book hero, way, way back there when no one ever dreamed they’d become collectibles, those tubeless, paper video-screens.
One could have retired early from their daily grind today, having the comic book collection of my pre-adolescent years, but that was another time, on another planet, so very long ago.
All young Billy Batson had to utter was that one magic word, and instantly a bolt out of the blue would strike him and Kabaroom! In his stead now stood a muscular, super-hero, six-plus height, square-jawed, cleft-chinned, in red body-suit pajamas, with cape, and thunderbolt icon (I vaguely recall) in an inverted triangle on his chest-garment. Shazam! Captain Marvel was instantly on the scene to fight for justice and good and overcome the latest force of evil. Holy Moley! (Billy’s favorite euphemism) What a difference one well-chosen word can make.
What word does it for you, opens the closed door, the closed coffer (not coffin, unless you know Resurrection language), the closed mind, the closed heart? The Advertising industry spends billions trying to discover and develop “Shazams” that work. Journalists wring out their word-soaked brains to cast headline Shazams that sell newpapers and magazines. The Food industry looks for logos to make their brand of Wheaties, the Breakfast of Champions, etc.
Billy, I recall—hopefully correctly—you had to go down into an abandoned subway tunnel to discover your Shazam. I believe that shaft has long since been sealed by people who made an avalanche of wrong choices, i.e. burrowing new tunnels through the sidewalls of the shaft entrance, tunnels that led nowhere. I also recall you were the one who said “Shazam” at the time when most needful.
In characteristic impatience, pardon my rolling up the sleeves to seize the day, hunt down the dream, and then even narcissistically marvel (in a Captainly way) at my own transformation. Holy Moley indeed! What was I waiting for? Almost as bad as the evil-doer, is the “Not doer” whose lethargy is another kind of marvel: an antihero whose adult life is stalled in the pre-adolescent comic-book stage. If this counted as some kind of achievement, then perhaps it is the Captain Marvel of the Parallel Universe.
Watch out for the video games, Billy. And you too, Wilhelmina! Too many are like tunnels with no light at either end, not even tunnel-vision!
Awaiting Captain Shazam
Do you know what it’s like
to wake up, say “Shazam”!
and have nothing happen?
No zoom! No wham?
Why, it’s like when Samson
woke up lightheaded and sadly
felt no might, sadly more,
lost his sight.
Is it lottery-lust that drives one on
to spend what’s going, going, gone,
praying that “Chance” will say “Shazam”!
like a batter swings on
and dreams, Grand Slam?
If a word can do it, forget about work,
forget about school, forget about prayer,
go, hunt down the password,
hunt, dream on, and marvel, O Captain,
how soon all is gone, as if
you said “Shazam”! then lost it all.
Shazam! It’s gone.
Formats
£7.90
Book Details
About the Book
Writing for entertainment, instruction, encouragement, and/or just plain sharing of perceptions, critiques, and moods, can be an edifying pastime and gift to the reader. That''s what "Payload From Poetria" delivers. It can be read cover to cover—the best approach-or selectively from the Table of Contents. Either way has the potential and promise of a siren-call to serendipity, a valuable and often providential commodity in today''s rapid-paced world of predictable uncertainties and un-realized expectations. How? By conjuring up a cloud of distraction with the world of words waiting to be recruited and arranged, to frame and even form beneficially influential thoughts and images. "Payload..." is that kind of useful literary accessory, prompting subliminal curiosity about word choices, and an awareness of their power. The author claims these words art "Poeple", inhabitants of Poetria, a world in an adjacent galaxy!
In this second book of a trilogy ("Deep Space Probe To Poetria" being the first), he carries on his preposterous claim from Book one. The reader''s challenge is to profit from and enjoy his attempt, while letting others near you on the subway, bus, or in the cafeteria, see you laughing at the very idea of being at all influenced by the author''s seemingly vacuous meanderings.
About the Author
This, the second of a trilogy, as well as "Deep Space Probe To Poetria" (Book 1) published in 2004 by AuthorHouse, could not have been written when the author''s desire was hot to do so over a half-century ago. That was when he first encountered the Poetrians (Who? Answer: E.T.s from beyond our Milky Way, word-creatures somewhat identified in his "Deep Space..." which introduction is also included in Book 2) at the dawn of his writing career. But being a fledgling adult, he was then not yet able to be one of their ambassadors in Versedom''s version of the InterGaiactic United Nations. Why? He had met "Rabbi Ben Ezra", whose sagacious song from Robert Browning''s epic pen, would sing over and over again in his "Poetriafied" mind. Just Stanza I was all he needed to hear and follow:
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith "A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God; see all nor be afraid!"
Now, in another century, this senior survivor—not the good Rabbi — with the passion of his early fires intact, but not at all trapped in this much older frame, spills out his quilted-patchwork-zany mind as a blanket of thoughts in prose and poetry, to cover as you traipse through his palpable universe, so very, very somewhere else, and yet, so very near. Now, in this last of life for which the first was made, he churns out his personal best.