Three Poems

By David Brennan

Marriage Mart

PREACHER
Do you, Rand, take Brennan to be your?

 

RAND
My what?

 

PREACHER
Do you, Brennan, take Rand to be your?

 

BRENNAN
(Wearing a smiley-face mask.)
I do.

 

PREACHER
I now pronounce you.

 

(Rand and Brennan, with very different facial expressions, exit the parking lot by entering the backdrop, which is a Wal-Mart storefront. As they leave, homelessly dirty Wal-Mart employees (excepting the standard blue vest) shower the couple with smiley-face confetti and broken shoelaces.)

 

Cheerleading

Scene 1

 

(ANDREW JONES and a CRIPPLE. ANDREW JONES is doing calisthenics, reaching to the sky, touching his toes. The CRIPPLE is standing, staring at the stage floor.)

 

ANDREW JONES
I’m a proper noun!
I’m a proper noun within a proper noun!

 

CRIPPLE
There is a penny on the ground.

 

ANDREW JONES
Pick it up, you cripple!

(Changes to leg kicks.)

Come on, already, pick it up!

 

(The CRIPPLE makes an effort to bend, but can’t.)

 

(WORDSWORTH enters. He picks up the penny.)

 

WORDSWORTH
I’m a big fan of you proper nouns. You do good work.

 

(He hands the penny to ANDREW JONES.)

 

ANDREW JONES
Gee, thanks Wordsworth!

 

(COLERIDGE enters and stands beside the CRIPPLE. Together they stare down.)

 

Scene 2

 

(RAND is holding BRENNAN at gunpoint.)

 

RAND
Give them back!

 

BRENNAN
I can’t.

 

RAND
You stole my thoughts. I want them.

 

BRENNAN
I don’t have them.

 

RAND
Where are they?

 

BRENNAN

I thought them.

 

 

Two Thieves

(The stage, dark. RAND sits at a desk. A feeble lamp shines on his forehead and on the pages he reads furiously, flipping back and forth, looking through piles of paper for this and that. BRENNAN sits to the side of the desk, shadowed, crossing and uncrossing his legs. RAND holds up a piece of paper.)

 

RAND
Is this a typo?

 

BRENNAN
What?

 

RAND
This. Is it a typo?

 

BRENNAN
What?

 

RAND
If it’s not a typo, it’s a neologism.

 

BRENNAN
Uhhh...

 

RAND
Which is it?

 

BRENNAN
What?

 

RAND
Temperment. Typo? Neologism?

 

BRENNAN

Typo?

 

 

Copyright 2009, David Brennan

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.