dear tom

dear tom--

i lost adam strange.

500 black & white pages
of his intergalactic adventures.

i ws 200 pages in.
deeply engrossed
in the radioactive menace
when it struck me
i hadnt emptied the mop bucket at work.

i had my bag fulla hockey equipment
& two sticks. which i keep at work.
but i had just wanted to go home
& sleep. endorphined up as i was
sitting in the 1st ave L station
contentedly reading adam strange
complacently enjoying adam strange
beat another unbeatable foe.

like grampa sd about louis lamour
'a horse that cant be rode
& a man that cant be th'owed.'

adam strange mentions that
evry time he's teleported 25 trillion miles
to the planet rann via zeta beam
there's a menace waiting
for him to vanquish.

fuck!

the mop bucket.

it's not like this'd get me fired.
or in actual trouble
but it wld be mentioned
& i'm usually on top of that shit.

but i ws quietly reading adam strange
happy i'd survived the ride to 14 st
from the drunk
i'd been at the bar with.

my lazy decision to go home to sleep
& take equipment there manana
cost me a cab ride
& adam strange.

i've always thought he must be cool
i had some 'mystery in space' comics
from the 50s & 60s i got secondhand.
my introduction to frank frazetta & al williamson.
space cabby ws a favorite.

& what a title: 'mystery in space'

therein originates adam strange
& his ray-gun.

the unbeatable hero against unbeatable foes.

heroes win.

i wonder if,
in the remaining 300 pages
anything different ever happened?

did alanna his intergalactic sweetheart
get tired of his disappearances
right after the climax
of the story?

i really wisht they'd included the filler
stories from mystery in space

and the science--
wow

i ws just getting into the stuff
inked by murphy anderson.
what an important hack.
i met him once
when i wento the san diego comiccon.
he & his wife sat behind a table
in the far-reaches of obscurity
friendlily smiling & talking.

even his brush & pen
didnt break up the monotony
of adam strange's predicament.

fuck! the mop bucket!

so, i sd fuck a few times
threw in a sumbitch
& caried sticks & equipment
up the steps to the street
into the cab that ws right there.

tosst the bag in the trunk
& got in the backseat with the sticks.

yessir i need to go downtown
that's very gd-- very gd
sd abdul

his night ws so so.
mine ws gd.
but i didnt rub it in.

took the fdr dwntwn
paid. tipped well.
grabbed the bag & sticks
thank you thank you
inside took care o the mop bucket.
finisht mopping. emptied it.

got to looking around.

fuck. where's adam strange?

maybe
it ws the little man
who lives in the cabbie's trunk.
some might call him a jinni
but i know it's a tiny tiny man
in a hat.

he makes his way, right now,
stealing things from bags
in the cabbie's trunk.

i'm sure the smell
of the equipment kept him at bay
initially.

so all he got ws adam strange.
i'm not sure where
my banana went, either.
but adam strange
definitely split.

so, i carried yr book around.
you remember the one.
it's green. against the day.
the first time in months
i've touched it
with the intent of reading it.

i carried it around all day
but i havent opened it yet.

& jeff gave me some more modern
adam strange graphic novels.
they're in my bag too.
i dont know what to say
about what i'll read.

so far today
having decided to read
your book
i've not read at all
but blathered on
about the situation
& wrote this letter to you.

keeping along, though,
most of these letters seem shorter
but this one keeps along
filling the many pockets
of these pages
& adam strange
is disappeared again.

spirited away from luscious
perky-breasted alanna
by the effects of zeta-beam teleportation
wearing off.

once the teleportation has worn off
where are you left?

adam strange has gone.
disappeared in the night
lost to 25 trillion miles
of accidental zeta-beam riding.

aswirl in cosmogony,
a