Charlie's Golden Halo
My painting "Charlie's Golden Halo" is inspired by "Charlie Dream," the first piece in Chris's Starkweather Dreams, a book-length poetry sequence focusing on Nebraska's notorious "spree killers" of the 1950s, Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate. —J.B.

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They's fryin' him tonight the voice confides
in my dream him Starkweather tonight
(countrified fake -backwoodsy like hicks
in bad movies) and I am
in the death chamber Charlie in the hard
straightbacked electric chair without
straps just a kind of
metal bowl atop his head
to jolt the juice in
and he looks as he looked: (Presley
sideburns James Dean windbreaker
Bogart cigarette between his fingers)
smaller than I'd remembered or imagined
slighter traces of baby fat softening
his cheeks freckles but the familiar
Brando sneer molding his mouth
(voice now behind my ear whispering They's fryin'
him tonight yeah justice comin' hot
an' hard courtesy the state
of Knee-braska in the good ol' U. S. of A.)
the switch the switch I know hundreds
of plain folk outside would love
to throw the switch is in my hand
it looks like a light switch
in my home or yours ten times bigger
giant ON painted black just above it
OFF below and the room is
small close-packed dark yet
I sense people all around murmurings
on every side and as I look
toward Charlie I see
Caril there in his lap their arms
around each other her head leaning to his
touching it or rather the metal bowl around it
she wears blue blouse jeans white cowboy boots
strictly the all-American country girl from
Life or Look and she sucks greedily
at a half -empty bottle of Pepsi
in her child -sized hand smiling pleasantly
between swallows I know I
should throw the switch shove it
upward watch them smoke and shudder
for as I stand there in the crowded room
I see my brother falling in subzero
Nebraska night his face burst
in screaming shotgun fog without even
a jacket against December lunar cold
see my daughter falling down abandoned
storm cellar steps back of her head
splayed open bright as sunflowers
feel the knife in my own back my own
belly my own chest
my body raged apart and see
the two of them smiling goading me
to do it do it switch in my hand
and I press on it push it up
(it weighs hundreds of pounds)
and as I do the room suddenly grows
brilliantly! bright! hum of! 2200! volts!
sheeting! throughout it! spitting!
crackling! the room! alive! with current!
voices! screaming! everywhere! around me!
my own hand blueglowing smell of
my flesh sizzling while in the chair
Charlie's metal bowl becomes a golden
halo the two of them
embracing in light giggling sharing
her Pepsi between them leaning together
watching us watching me
enjoying the show
in my dream him Starkweather tonight
(countrified fake -backwoodsy like hicks
in bad movies) and I am
in the death chamber Charlie in the hard
straightbacked electric chair without
straps just a kind of
metal bowl atop his head
to jolt the juice in
and he looks as he looked: (Presley
sideburns James Dean windbreaker
Bogart cigarette between his fingers)
smaller than I'd remembered or imagined
slighter traces of baby fat softening
his cheeks freckles but the familiar
Brando sneer molding his mouth
(voice now behind my ear whispering They's fryin'
him tonight yeah justice comin' hot
an' hard courtesy the state
of Knee-braska in the good ol' U. S. of A.)
the switch the switch I know hundreds
of plain folk outside would love
to throw the switch is in my hand
it looks like a light switch
in my home or yours ten times bigger
giant ON painted black just above it
OFF below and the room is
small close-packed dark yet
I sense people all around murmurings
on every side and as I look
toward Charlie I see
Caril there in his lap their arms
around each other her head leaning to his
touching it or rather the metal bowl around it
she wears blue blouse jeans white cowboy boots
strictly the all-American country girl from
Life or Look and she sucks greedily
at a half -empty bottle of Pepsi
in her child -sized hand smiling pleasantly
between swallows I know I
should throw the switch shove it
upward watch them smoke and shudder
for as I stand there in the crowded room
I see my brother falling in subzero
Nebraska night his face burst
in screaming shotgun fog without even
a jacket against December lunar cold
see my daughter falling down abandoned
storm cellar steps back of her head
splayed open bright as sunflowers
feel the knife in my own back my own
belly my own chest
my body raged apart and see
the two of them smiling goading me
to do it do it switch in my hand
and I press on it push it up
(it weighs hundreds of pounds)
and as I do the room suddenly grows
brilliantly! bright! hum of! 2200! volts!
sheeting! throughout it! spitting!
crackling! the room! alive! with current!
voices! screaming! everywhere! around me!
my own hand blueglowing smell of
my flesh sizzling while in the chair
Charlie's metal bowl becomes a golden
halo the two of them
embracing in light giggling sharing
her Pepsi between them leaning together
watching us watching me
enjoying the show
#
From Starkweather Dreams: Landscape With Figures copyright © 2009 by Christopher Conlon
Back to The Bucciano/Conlon Project
From Starkweather Dreams: Landscape With Figures copyright © 2009 by Christopher Conlon
Back to The Bucciano/Conlon Project