by Nick Porcella

 

1. PORT

The world’s been portmanteau’d
By phones with eyes and fruit;
Not to mention androids, who were
Supposed to take a different form.
And the corners of rooms now
Read to you, flamed and kindled.
Padded rooms and glaring dooms.
So many numbers replacing numbers
Bar codes bearing heavy loads—
Never ending, never bending,
Always trending, forever sending,
Generations generations generations.
The world’s been portmanteau’d
By silver screens and things called memes,
By applications, Abbrev.s, sugar and spice—
Technology’s nice.
The world’s been portmanteau’d
And no longer has a face.
 

1. MAN

We’ve reached port, Man, too!
Screams the captain, O Captain, mine.
No names on a ship, only faces.
Ghoulish faces, grotesque faces—grotesque
Faces front and says to us
We have reached port, Men!
Calling to us, zombies of the boat.
Months-long journey done and
We have reached port.
O my Captain, I wish you knew our names!
There is a man with a name,
John Proctor’d and calling for John Proctor.
All you can say is that we have reached
Port, Man. We have reached Port, Man.
We have reached port having been together
For long months, wrought with scurvy
Fraternity and bleeding from orifices.
You rats! We’ve reached port! Leave, Man, too!
Go away! Why do you stare at me so?
“Because it is my name!”

 

1. TEAU

Natalie Portman, too.
Why, she’s pretty and she knows things.
She has a face and she has a name,
She has a soul—
Named Natalie, Natalie Portman,
Natalie Portman does not deserve pronouns.
So from now on, she, er, Natalie Portman
Gets no pronouns!
Natalie Portman was walking one day
Down the block, it was Wednesday, when
Natalie Portman saw Natalie Portman’s reflection
In a cold mirror.
So Natalie Portman, looking at Natalie Portman,
Too, saw Natalie Portman’s image and
Smashed the window into a million small bits.
Natalie Portman worried that Natalie Portman
Was now cursed, forever cursed. Natalie Portman
Cried and cried and cried and cried and cried
For Natalie Portman.
Natalie Portman has a name! Natalie Portman
Has a name!
Natalie Portman is not a portman, nor a portwoman.
But Natalie Portman does have a name.
Natalie Portman does have a name.
And that is more than I can say for the rest of us.

 

Nick Porcella studies English at Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, and intends to teach high school. His passions include Herman Melville, rap music, photography, and writing. He is completing a memoir, Getting to Say Goodbye. See more of his work here.

Photo credit: WILKS’S AIRTIGHT PORTMANTEAU, OPEN, 1867. Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest. Retrieved 17 Jun 2015, from http://quest.eb.com/search/300_660054/1/300_660054/cite