Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

Four Square Productions, 1978


absurdity as true to Camus is
living understanding we will die &
doing facing nothing waiting after
what Tillich called courage

takes a little of each to sit through this
like watching Airplane! for the fifteenth time
so you know in advance the jokes are funny &
in knowing lose something—

a pain in the side from extension of the belly laugh
oh sight gags oh one-liners
more than enough nonsensical whimsy
to inspire a cult of fascination

which deems the story immortal
in living beyond its author—
that too an existential notion as absurd
as this movie having been filmed at all









Ace Boggess is the author of two books of poetry: The Prisoners (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2014) and The Beautiful Girl Whose Wish Was Not Fulfilled (Highwire Press, 2003). Forthcoming are his novel, A Song Without a Melody (Hyperborea Publishing), and a third poetry collection, Ultra-Deep Field (Brick Road). His writing has appeared in Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, RATTLE, River Styx, North Dakota Quarterly and many other journals. He lives in Charleston, West Virginia.

You can see another of his poems in issue 1.2