Pinball Wizard
Published in The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review and
This Business of Wisdom (West End Press, 2010)
Musical accompaniment composed
and performed by John Rangel
Recorded live at the Outpost Performance Space
Albuquerque, New Mexico, Summer 2009
The pinball machine was silent
for a minute and he knew that meant
he should go next door
right then
to where his parents were pressing
clothes and remembering
the customers’ shirt sizes
and names, and whether
they had spots they needed out,
but the machine was bumping
and beeping again,
and the whole room was knocking about
even as he began to walk away,
and he wanted back
into the bright lights and colors
which suited him better
than the steam and his father’s
counting of dollars and
if only he had some more
change – a quarter, maybe,
in one of those endless pockets —
he would go back there again
to flip the levers
and forget the flipping fury
of his dad at the end
of the day
because it is there
in the back of this store,
where drunks roll in
for bottles and lottery tickets
sell by the dozens
and Yodels and Suzy-Qs sit
hopeful in their cellophane,
waiting for someone with a quarter,
a dime, a hunger,
it is only there
in that dusty room
that he is loud enough
and smart enough and prepared
for the next unexpected shot.