Thomas Edison, his body unwinding
\non a bed in Menlo Park, turned his head<\/p>\n
toward the window.\u00a0It’s very beautiful<\/em> lying on a litter of the flotsam and jetsam on an old phonograph cylinder. What The long, low whistle of a distant train? against a wall: a man sneezing, another of assistants electrocuting an elephant. and when he called it beautiful, did he that the world in which he was dying to imagine this, though I don’t know though I like to believe that listening our will. I can’t help but love the jokes condemned men of vaudevillian wit. Appel said:\u00a0Well, gentlemen, you And French, when his turn came French fries.<\/em>\u00a0Even the worst villains Standing at the gallows, Carl Panzram had one neck and I had my hands on it.<\/em> no matter how venomous. Words to one another, even as the gaps perilous. Amelia Earhart beamed of radio waves:\u00a0We must be on you, is running low<\/em>. I wonder if she knew that while her words found someone, she had known, what would she toss A letter to a secret lover, a testament Would she beg for the last pages an apple from a certain orchard, her wrist? I would believe any most of all, don’t we? Conrad Hilton, on the inside of the tub.\u00a0<\/em>Thomas Grasso, my Spaghetti-Os. I got spaghetti. matter, even when we’re dying: because to deny them that, somehow, last words vanished into his nurse’s a long, dry well\u2014she mistook his German the Christians can’t get their Messiah’s it makes sense to keep their options despair or resignation\u2014for the days however, are those who have nothing one last time. Seven riflemen shot through Parral, his roadster loaded I imagine this scene as the finale into the dusty street to fire a shot and falls from the roof to the wooden his golden ones, closer to Villa than over and, weeping, lifts the revolutionary into his ear. Villa, coughing blood, but short\u2014and dies. Of course, as romantic as we hope. In reality, only time to say:\u00a0Don’t let it end <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Thomas Edison, his body unwinding on a bed in Menlo Park, turned his head toward the window.\u00a0It’s very beautiful over… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-592","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/midamericanreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/midamericanreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/midamericanreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/midamericanreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/midamericanreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/midamericanreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":593,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/midamericanreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/592\/revisions\/593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/midamericanreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nover there,<\/em>\u00a0he said. I imagine him<\/p>\n
\nof invention, his delicate head propped<\/p>\n
\nis the recording? An assistant singing?<\/p>\n
\nA projector chatters as it throws an image<\/p>\n
\nperforming the Ghost Dance, a team<\/p>\n
\nWhat did he see through that window,<\/p>\n
\nwish he was somewhere or someone else,<\/p>\n
\nwas not beautiful at all? It’s easy<\/p>\n
\nmuch about Edison, or anyone, really,<\/p>\n
\nbrings us closer, sometimes against<\/p>\n
\nof killers with a sense of humor,<\/p>\n
\nAs they strapped him into the chair,<\/p>\n
\nare about to see a baked apple.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nsaid:\u00a0How about this for a headline?<\/em><\/p>\n
\nsometimes have a gift for poetry.<\/p>\n
\nsaid:\u00a0I wish the whole human race<\/em><\/p>\n
\nI can’t argue with such deft aphorisms,<\/p>\n
\nwork that way, ratcheting us closer<\/p>\n
\nbetween us grow wider and more<\/p>\n
\nher voice out to the earless lull<\/p>\n
\nbut we cannot see you. Fuel<\/em><\/p>\n
\nthat no one would answer back,<\/p>\n
\nshe would not be found? And if<\/p>\n
\ninto the pool of air and static?<\/p>\n
\nof faith, or something more mundane?<\/p>\n
\nof a book left unfinished on land,<\/p>\n
\nor to hold a glass of cold tea against<\/p>\n
\nof this\u2014we want the smallest pleasures<\/p>\n
\ndying, said only:\u00a0Leave the curtain<\/em><\/p>\n
\nmurderer, complained:\u00a0I did not get<\/em><\/p>\n
\nI want the press to know this.<\/em>\u00a0Details.<\/p>\n
\nwe ask the condemned for last words<\/p>\n
\nseems worse than death. Einstein’s<\/p>\n
\nignorant ear like a stone thrown down<\/p>\n
\nfor babble. And even with four gospels,<\/p>\n
\nlast breath straight, though I suppose<\/p>\n
\nopen, to reserve those different verses\u2014<\/p>\n
\nthat need them. Most tragic of all,<\/p>\n
\nto say, no word to draw us close<\/p>\n
\nPancho Villa while he was driving<\/p>\n
\ndown with gold, flanked by bodyguards.<\/p>\n
\nof an epic western film: Villa staggers<\/p>\n
\nat one of the riflemen, who crumples<\/p>\n
\nsidewalk. One of Villa’s Dorades,<\/p>\n
\nany other\u2014a cousin perhaps\u2014rushes<\/p>\n
\nby his bandoliers, whispers something<\/p>\n
\ndelivers a monologue\u2014inspirational,<\/p>\n
\nthis does not happen. Death is never<\/p>\n
\nVilla has no time for soliloquies,<\/p>\n
\nlike this. Tell them I said something.<\/em><\/p>\n