Happy Tuesday. Let’s have a little fun with today, shall we?
Tuesday’s July 24 prompt is “the world’s only hope is Jerry (the comic book cashier)”
I have an older brother who would collect comic books, so I have spent my fair share of time in many of them. His favorite was one called Rackafratz Comics on Commercial, halfway between home & downtown. (That space has been many things since – but mostly a succession of vape shops.)
Every surface was covered with rows of long boxes of colored archives and smelled of old pages – despite each offered issue being encased in a plastic sleeve. Keith would buy two copies of his treasured passions, one for reading, one – untouched) into his collection. He favored the Marvel offerings, Doctor Strange, Fantastic Four, all the various Spiderman titles, X-men & all their off-shoot heroes.
The X-men were my favorite – with the mutants who were “just born that way”. There’s times I feel like a mutant myself – what with my SLIDing tendencies – so you can see why I relate well to them. And Russian farm-boy, Piotr/Colossus, has long been my comic-book crush (how awesome he’s in the Deadpool movies!). Which means, yes, Kitty & Piotr is one of my favorite love stories (I thought it was karmic when she took the name of “Ariel” as well).
Anywho, Keith would spend a long time talking to the store’s owner – I forget his name now (perhaps it WAS Jerry). It was like they would talk an entirely hidden language, something hidden between the common every-day syllables so that they meant something coded …
I think this is my starting point.
Where is yours? How will you play with this prompt?
Naturally, being around comic books for so long, occasionally a poem would work it’s way around one. This is one I wrote, as a teenager, from Kity Pryde’s point of view during one of their frequent break-ups …
Speaking of Kitty Pryde & Piotr – a friend of mine who owns a comic store told me the X-men issue out features Their Wedding (Woot woot!) … Dude, I gotta get that issue! Purely for reading.
ANd … now it seems my laptop needs life-saving surgery today! I could use Kitty’s computer skills today …
My archive of poetry prompts is here.
You know I’m all about the prompts!
Ariel
nwpoetariel
Ariel, Pacific NW poet 
Let me know what you think ...