"Pilot Episode Clip" - Rupert Fike

Pilot Episode Clip      

     You must never forget me.

     Even though I fear you shall,

     my hope is that you please don't.

This is the speech I give to my more

talented lover on our last night together,

the night she departs to a better city

where acclaim and new romance await.

I like the way my words have a slightly

archaic syntax derived from re-reading

Hardy and George Eliot all last summer,

yet the whole scene is delusional

because there is no lover,

and there is no better city or scene.

There is only me in the shower,

rogue energy posting sticky notes

for a production meeting in my head.  

Early humans were such good Buddhists,

always in the moment from constantly

having to kill or skin something.

But once they started preserving meat,

winter's supply sun-dried and stacked up

there was leisure to draw on walls,

point to the stars, say, that's me up there,

I'm Orion chasing Ursa across night skies.

Their dream worlds somehow innocent,

while ours, well, mine in particular,

is just indulgent, out there. I must do better.

One more thing though before I reform -

why did I cast myself as such a nebbish?

And how can interest ever be sustained

(in my ten-part auteur cable series)

if I'm clearly not on the hero's journey?

I will need a personal assistant

(Yale drama school, but LA savvy)

both for the casting and to help decide

if my lover forgets me or not.

I can see it going both ways.

(published by Blue Fifth Review, 7/18)