Pinball Nation
Those three buttons on my Manage Posts page—View, Edit, Delete—constantly entice me. I press View to see how it looks, then invariably end up back at Edit to delete a comma, add a word, change a phrase. Even now I am dinkering with caps vs quotes in the previous sentence. What is with this compulsion to edit?
In graduate school I had my hand slapped for over-editing. Frederick Barthelme wrung his hands together to demonstrate the tendency I have toward overly wrought, fussed over writing. “A good story is like a pinball,” he said. “Yours is like a statue.”
I loved the compliment hidden in his complaint. If my writing was excessively stylized and tended toward a finely honed work of art, that was a good thing, right?
No, it’s not a good thing. A statue carved in stone begs for one more tweak—one more edit. A steel pinball, on the other hand, is complete, finished. It is harder, simpler, smoother than a statue, and because it has the capacity for movement and function, it is ultimately more interesting. A statue merely stands there. Pinballs are modern, products of the industrial revolution. Statues date back to antiquity. In a modern pinball nation, you don’t want to be a statue. You want bells and whistles and lights and action and speed and tension and color and movement. So I wrote this poem about a pinball and turned it for my final exam.
I am whole, not half, I got grease on my roll
and a cowboy with a sack of quarters backing me
tracking me, betting on me to score big
run up the numbers, yelling
don’t stop! take it to the top!
and I land in Heart, hit pay dirt, red alert
and the lights go mad and I’m so
glad my momma made me steel
got iron in my gut, I’m heating up
cutting right, left, guy in boots yelling
go, baby! go!
whops me from the right, yells
out of sight, sweet thing!
now get down! get the Balls!
and I get the Balls and he calls it
all right! and I slide into Big Toe
hit ten thousand two, he says
love it! love it! and shoves me to the top
whops me from the left and I go for the Head
no lead in me, Fe with C
then I wham into Brain like a barge full of wheat
pretty neat, guy says
sweet! sweeeet!
numbers rumbling, fumbling, guy having a fit,
my fuse is lit and I’m charging around
like a forty-dollar firecracker
higher! higher! he yells and I do Right Eye
then Left Eye too, guy’s laughing out loud yelling
go, baby! go!
now we’re twenty thousand two, not blue
Bellybutton almost gets me, guy says niiiice
whops me from the right, making me roll
I roll and roll, showing my whole
guy loves playing, says
get the Knee! the Kneee!
thirty thousand lights
now the other Knee!I’m spinning, spinning, starting to see
this guy’s good-looking and he’s looking at me
whops me from the left, I’m rolling fast
I slide past Mouth and two Nipples flash
Top Lip lights and then Nose glows
guy says do it! and there I go
we got fifty thousand points
guy’s swinging his hips and I make it
past Mouth without taking a dip
rolling, rolling, two holes to go
lights make me dizzy, oops,
Bellybutton hole
whops me from the left, I’m flying alright
it’s daylight at night, carnival of sights
bends, curves, move it! man yells
I hit higher ground, Throat
Cheek, cowboy says yeeee!
sees I’m riding a tilted panel, back lights
frontal attack, high hopes on a slippery slope
Ear! man yells, Ear Nose!
whops me from the right, but he misses his lick
and I’m heading for Asshole lickety-split
slow down, veer left, I’m coming through
jukebox playing song about dreams come true
guy swears he loves it but he’s run out of coin
and I’m on my own now heading back to Groin
guy curses, swears, tries one last flip
my nerves are steel and I land in Hipwhat a trip!