TIC
Reading June 2, 2007
"Embedded With Mangoes
in the Garden of Duelling Delights"
"Palaces and Fountains:" prose
poem
Carla Hagen
I warned them. They all think I’m just a low-life private
eye, doing surveillance for scorned spouses, hacking into
crooked computers that house corporate secrets, doing all
the boring work cops don’t want to do. But that’s
not all. I hear things in my line of work. Secrets. Some of
them so volatile I’d be crazy to tell them. These were
rumors, but well-founded ones that told me the truth: it wasn’t
just some wild-eyed entrepreneur who really liked pink, who
just had to install those vulgar imitations of the palaces
of Kubla Khan—as if he even knew what that meant—the
vibrating slot machines, the truly ugly fountain that looked
like a robot bearing overdeveloped trumpets or mutant morning
glories, the oh-so-carefully crafted lakes people couldn’t
help but walk into. After all, it was hotter than the bejesus
those days and getting hotter all the time. The little pink
paradise was just a distraction. And it came from Her, the
first female president, the one people thought would be Commander-in-Chief
and mommy all rolled up into one. The pink was a nice touch.
Bread and circuses. Bread and roses. Of course everyone flocked
there--the grass lime-green as in the springs we hadn’t
seen for decades, the carefully tended flowers. And in the
background the city lit up a Hollywood opening with klieg
lights. To me it looked more like Dresden during that long-ago
War. Or giant streams of water trying in vain to put out fires
already burning out of control. Which they were. It’s
just that no one wanted to see it. How could they, with all
the green, the cool water, the blinding fuchsia?
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Carla Hagen is a writer and
criminal attorney who grew up on Lake of the Woods and has
a thing for Latin America. She is marketing her first novel,
White Lilies in Dark Water, set on the Canadian border in
1936. In her spare time she writes poetry, co-hosts a Latin
music show on KFAI and takes notes for her next novel, which
will be all about crime and court, thus drawing material
from her day job.
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