{"id":7979,"date":"2018-10-30T22:16:42","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T04:16:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=7979"},"modified":"2018-10-30T22:16:42","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T04:16:42","slug":"adaptation","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=7979","title":{"rendered":"Adaptation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emily Williamson<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019m a very simple man. You\u2019ve got to have, like, a computer nowadays to turn the TV on and off, and the nightmare continues.<\/em><\/p>\n

— Ozzy Osbourne<\/em><\/p>\n

Can\u2019t blame the man who wants a simple choice,
\nA single flavor of things, like milk or bacon,
\nOr, hell, the joys of bat decapitation.
\nI share this with the OzMan — our nightmare of logins,
\n 
\nReboots, control-deletes and verifications,
\nAnd tweets, repeat and post, like the whole damn world
\nIs a password lost, my mother\u2019s maiden name,
\nThe street where I grew up, my best friend\u2019s dog.
\n 
\nIf I were to slice a landfill clean as a loaf,
\nI\u2019d find the thrown-out goods there stratified.
\nThe patient possessions of the past still lie
\nThere, flawless as Pompeii or Oetzi from the Alps.
\n 
\nI mean the Walkman layer. The one with gremlin heads,
\nWall phones with cords, and decals like Baby on Board<\/em>,
\nWarped VCRs, and carbon paper, Flowbees,
\nMonopoly thimbles, Moon Boots, Rotary dials,
\n 
\nParachute pants, the moon, and Garfield\u2019s ass,
\n(Poor fella, caught in all those crank-up windows)
\nThe hollow carcass of the Millennium Falcon,
\nAnd a Breyer horse, a still-born Polaroid.
\n 
\nThe trash tells all. From where it started out
\nTo me — a dinosaur — now gone the way
\nOf the wallpaper store, the sewing machine repair.
\nWe\u2019re made of all the stuff we\u2019ve thrown away,
\n 
\nFrom arrowheads to ear spools, fishing hooks
\nOf abalone shell, and ferrous awls,
\nThe broken dish the maid could not abide,
\nThe hand-wrought nails, the medicine bottle glass
\n 
\nTurned lavender by sun and manganese,
\nPatinaed window panes and baby teeth,
\nOld whiskey jugs, and ironstone, great stacks
\nOf broken headboards, chairs, steel barrel hoops,
\n 
\nDistorted wagon wheels, mining claims,
\nRed Bakelite casino chips and beads,
\nBel Airs and Chesterfield tobacco tins,
\nSweet Esther Williams\u2019 face on a Wheaties box,
\n 
\nFord engine blocks, and stirrup pants, and cans
\nOf faded Pabst Blue Ribbon, and like I said,
\nThe gutted remains of Ozzy Osbourne\u2019s tapes —
\nTheir shiny ribbons flashing in the sun.
\n 
\nIt\u2019s all there, stacking up, still growing.
\nBut if I had to pick one single thing,
\nOne fragment of a temporary life,
\nThe exceptional phenomenon of me,
\n 
\nIt\u2019s just this off-white caf\u00e9 coffee mug,
\nCrazing and chipped, in a plain caf\u00e9, in a town
\nWhere the coffee\u2019s even plainer, when it comes,
\nBurnt black but weak, with cleverly tepid cream.
\n 
\nA coffee that won\u2019t put on airs, that won\u2019t
\nDeclare its kinship with dry cabernet
\nOr camembert, where I can stare through panes
\nOf unwashed windows, to a steady mountain range
\n 
\nAnd all its folded age, its stoic frown.
\nJust watch. It doesn\u2019t move. It doesn\u2019t change
\nIn the sunbaked sky and all I ever knew.
\nA simple thing that keeps on slowing time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Formerly an archaeologist, EMILY WILLIAMSON<\/strong> is a writer, editor, and literary agent currently based in Baltimore, MD. Her poetry has appeared in The Waterhouse Review<\/em> and is forthcoming in Measure<\/em>. Her short stories have appeared in Blackbird, Word Riot, Peacock Journal<\/em> & Peacock Journal Anthology: Beauty First<\/em>, another was a finalist in Glimmer Train<\/em>\u2019s Fiction Open 2012. She has a BA in Anthropology from American University and an MA in writing from Johns Hopkins University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Emily Williamson     I\u2019m a very simple man. You\u2019ve got to have, like, a computer nowadays to turn the TV on and off, and the nightmare continues. — Ozzy Osbourne Can\u2019t blame the man who wants a simple choice, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":7974,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7979","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P15duy-24H","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7979"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7986,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7979\/revisions\/7986"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}