Aaron Belz

Three poems

Tim Burton Explodes

Narrowly gathered zoot suit,
Extreme nose, slightly tilted,
You walked for awhile and exploded.


In Bed with Meryl Streep

Hard to believe your first movie
Came out in 1977 — you are timeless,
Like a Dracula statue in the rain:
And now, as you rub my shoulders,
Wearing that flowered nightgown,
We hear actual rain, or is it wind,
Rushing around our Buena Vista condo.
You flip off Cheers. I know what’s next.


Gary Cooper in the Intellectual Graveyard

He gives himself too much space
To think. He thinks about too many
Things that aren’t real. He speaks
Too effetely and in arcane words
Of possible worlds, plausible
Only to the likes of Gary Cooper,
A.k.a. Frank J. Cooper, of Helena,
Who spent seven years in England
And returned to recover
From an automobile accident.
He thinks too obsessively
About what his life was and whether
It should have been lived differently —
The singing cowboy,
Asleep with all his women, thinking,
Dreaming, affecting a posture,
Punctuating his long meditations
With “Of course,” “Perhaps,” “It would seem,”
And “To be perfectly frank.”
Gimme the bones in them boots, Gary.

Aaron Belz

Aaron Belz has new work in Court Green, No Tell Motel, Boston Review, and McSweeney’s. He lives in St. Louis, MO, where he teaches at Saint Louis University and curates the ‘Readings @’ poetry series, a moveable feast that will spend the 2005–06 season at the Schlafly Tap Room.