The Love Song of Bob Dole
& "The Greatest Generation"
"I was shy and tender...."
Allen Ginsberg's "You Know What I'm Saying?"
ashes to ashes, dicks to dust
it takes a pill to stoke our lust
& even if Libby gets skin like leather
all us old farts stick together
we fought the war again' the Nazi
and even beat the goddam Japanee
so we could wear coats made of pleather
that's why us old farts stick together
bald old heads & baggy old skin
cancerous prostate & saggy chin
wearing Ben-Gay in hot sticky weather
makes us old farts stick together
& when we go to His throne on Judgement Day
we'll all be singin' "i did it my waayyy...."
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
The Earl of Sandwich is a Glistening God
The Earl of Sandwich is a Glistening God
"We're in too deep...."
Jorie Graham's "Prayer"
I met two salmon once
in a motel room near Troy, Nebraska--
glimmering and slippery they were,
as tasty as the finest eels, brown and golden
in a frying pan.
The first lay upside down & backwards, while the other
stood beside the bed--patiently waiting--quick & glittering
from the wetness of my mind, where it had dipped into
and found my secret (as I knelt on the bed in prayer):
I have this great emptiness, deep within me,
which needs to be filled.
Nothing else matters.
They were not endangered, not by me at least;
I had never killed anything that way
(except perhaps that time I morally
wounded a dwarf mongoose in Rhode Island,
and I gagged once on an albino python in Montreal)
I hold within so many things--
one size fits all, but I am not unquenchable.
Plunging upwards, the upturned salmon swam against the stream
he found the running bitter waters
he found the deepest part, too sweet,
he found the quickening tissues of life's first ocean
and mouthed with his ovule lips the words, words, words
first spoken by The Serpent in The Garden
and felt the knot--a bit off from what he thought--
but truly there.
I felt his thirst unloosened by the in-betweeness
that I shared--I named the two salmon: Far Better
and Four Worse.
Deeper, deeper, into less and less--their minds unfastened
with a quickening gait.
The smooth surfaces of things split, rejoined, and split again
the timeless motions, the quickening, the race, ...
Too deep? he said,
like the bluebird's beak
lowering the early worm into the open gaping mouth--
like the yawning chick, my blindness was all peripheral
a matter of perspective, the immanent domain of trousers
snaking their way edgewise into the gullet of the opening maw,
like soiled clothes touching the edge of an overstuffed hamper.
Bluish and empurpled veins stand out on the salmon, too
tight skin, as my kisses land on every inch of the seeable
translucent self. Meanwhile, the upturned salmon, bare and bony,
feeds on small puddles of snowmelt, lapping up the miles.
With his endless inwardness, he disperses his sea-like
wetness in the uncoalescing openings.
I turn round to face the upturned salmon
resting my haunches on his tiny pelvis bone
and place the emptiness of my self-same stillness on his swelling brine-filled
forward motion, the tiny upliftings, the rise and falling of things
unseen, undreamt of, like the long red rays of the sun going (up &) down.
The other salmon moves closer, so that soon
in his approach he is not so much near me as in me
Glad to be in? No? So unprotected
from your rubbery glance, so plastic in your
stretched smile. He was
pointing out his full bodylength, like a gull's neck
Love big enough to hide in a breadbox--
all that is true, I carry inside me,
and out and in, this bodywidth of frailty.
My eyes fix on the singular redness of the thing
the unnatural thickening, just there, anticipating
the eruption of the present, the simultaneous emptying,
the undulations, the eager logic, the perplexed engines of desire....
The radio by the bed announced:
"... they were readied by forces she did not recognize ..."
at that last moment we moved, by prearranged signals
so that the one stood at my feet, above the glistening sheets
where my welcoming toes stand out, and the other moves
to my face where my bluest eye begs for his oblation.
the ending of things
all too certain--a shattering of selves into the rubble
and debris, like ancient Troy a shattering of statues into
unseemly piles of arms, and heads, and legs--the faces
worn away and wedged in between.
We lay there, as Paris, Menelaus & Helen lay--
bodies jumbled up as the shattered stone
our juices spilled for kings.
Even the ear, too, is finally satiated
and the window swallows these words:
"Wait! Did I say salmon? ... I meant salesmen."
"We're in too deep...."
Jorie Graham's "Prayer"
I met two salmon once
in a motel room near Troy, Nebraska--
glimmering and slippery they were,
as tasty as the finest eels, brown and golden
in a frying pan.
The first lay upside down & backwards, while the other
stood beside the bed--patiently waiting--quick & glittering
from the wetness of my mind, where it had dipped into
and found my secret (as I knelt on the bed in prayer):
I have this great emptiness, deep within me,
which needs to be filled.
Nothing else matters.
They were not endangered, not by me at least;
I had never killed anything that way
(except perhaps that time I morally
wounded a dwarf mongoose in Rhode Island,
and I gagged once on an albino python in Montreal)
I hold within so many things--
one size fits all, but I am not unquenchable.
Plunging upwards, the upturned salmon swam against the stream
he found the running bitter waters
he found the deepest part, too sweet,
he found the quickening tissues of life's first ocean
and mouthed with his ovule lips the words, words, words
first spoken by The Serpent in The Garden
and felt the knot--a bit off from what he thought--
but truly there.
I felt his thirst unloosened by the in-betweeness
that I shared--I named the two salmon: Far Better
and Four Worse.
Deeper, deeper, into less and less--their minds unfastened
with a quickening gait.
The smooth surfaces of things split, rejoined, and split again
the timeless motions, the quickening, the race, ...
Too deep? he said,
like the bluebird's beak
lowering the early worm into the open gaping mouth--
like the yawning chick, my blindness was all peripheral
a matter of perspective, the immanent domain of trousers
snaking their way edgewise into the gullet of the opening maw,
like soiled clothes touching the edge of an overstuffed hamper.
Bluish and empurpled veins stand out on the salmon, too
tight skin, as my kisses land on every inch of the seeable
translucent self. Meanwhile, the upturned salmon, bare and bony,
feeds on small puddles of snowmelt, lapping up the miles.
With his endless inwardness, he disperses his sea-like
wetness in the uncoalescing openings.
I turn round to face the upturned salmon
resting my haunches on his tiny pelvis bone
and place the emptiness of my self-same stillness on his swelling brine-filled
forward motion, the tiny upliftings, the rise and falling of things
unseen, undreamt of, like the long red rays of the sun going (up &) down.
The other salmon moves closer, so that soon
in his approach he is not so much near me as in me
Glad to be in? No? So unprotected
from your rubbery glance, so plastic in your
stretched smile. He was
pointing out his full bodylength, like a gull's neck
Love big enough to hide in a breadbox--
all that is true, I carry inside me,
and out and in, this bodywidth of frailty.
My eyes fix on the singular redness of the thing
the unnatural thickening, just there, anticipating
the eruption of the present, the simultaneous emptying,
the undulations, the eager logic, the perplexed engines of desire....
The radio by the bed announced:
"... they were readied by forces she did not recognize ..."
at that last moment we moved, by prearranged signals
so that the one stood at my feet, above the glistening sheets
where my welcoming toes stand out, and the other moves
to my face where my bluest eye begs for his oblation.
the ending of things
all too certain--a shattering of selves into the rubble
and debris, like ancient Troy a shattering of statues into
unseemly piles of arms, and heads, and legs--the faces
worn away and wedged in between.
We lay there, as Paris, Menelaus & Helen lay--
bodies jumbled up as the shattered stone
our juices spilled for kings.
Even the ear, too, is finally satiated
and the window swallows these words:
"Wait! Did I say salmon? ... I meant salesmen."
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
The Strangest MRDP I Ever Did See
The Strangest MRDP I Ever Did See
"They can't separate probably...."
Robert Hass' "Dragonflies Mating"
One day walking in a tangled wood
Past the cool stream
Past the weeping stand of willows
Under the warm sun, beaming down,
I saw them.
They lay there, almost helpless,
Writhing in the agony of the damned,
Angels,
Two of them, joined at the hip,
The strangest MRDP I ever did see on earth.
And what was really strange,
About angels, I mean,
Was they have no breasts,
Not even the merest vestigial Vestal vessels for the
Milk of human kindness....
Looking at them is hard on the eyes 'cause bisexually
They look, one way, male
And, another way, female
And even the (I think) female has breasts no bigger
Than a double AA cup, like a Pre-teenager
And the (I think) male looked like a boy
With a caved-in sunken chest and sticky-outee nipples
Like an bitch that just gave birth last week.
Their skin was slickly white, like a marbleized plaster bust
And the rock-like flesh did not give at all
To the pressure of the rocks and leaves and sticks
That were under them, pushing up, as they thrashed around.
But this same marble skin was covered with honey,
At least it looked like honey, or perhaps it was
The yellowed bee-extruded licorice-looking Ambrosial
Sweat of Angels
Who, flying in the night, connect (by accident)
Crashing together like blind seagulls (at least
That's the story they'll tell later).
But here they were, stuck together like two dogs
Caught and helpless in their passion, needing a bucket of water
Thrown on them.
And as they rolled across the grass, the leaves
Stuck to their waxy, honeyed limbs, like rose petals
Clinging to the bees that had assaulted them (sexually).
Taking pity on their sufferings, I found a long limb
Broken in a storm from an old elm (useless for a fireplace)
And, raising it over my head, brought it down across their
Head&shoulders repeatedly, again and again, until
In more than mortal pain&anguish, they pulled apart
And then, without a by-your-leave, or thanks (to me) of any kind
They sprouted enormous wings and flapping
Lifted themselves into the empty sky.
Nothing else of note happened that day
Except my hands--even to this day--have the smell
Of burnt cat-piss, just like an elm branch thrown in the fire.
You don't believe me? Here, smell my finger.
-----------------------------------------------
Eric Dutton suggests that "MRDP" stands for Mystical Realization of
Divine Providence, and another reader suggests Magical Realist Double Penetration, but the reader can choose whatever phrase seems most appropriate.
This poem was first published in Arkansas Literary Forum
http://fac.hsu.edu/beggsm/ALF/2003/lee2.htm
"They can't separate probably...."
Robert Hass' "Dragonflies Mating"
One day walking in a tangled wood
Past the cool stream
Past the weeping stand of willows
Under the warm sun, beaming down,
I saw them.
They lay there, almost helpless,
Writhing in the agony of the damned,
Angels,
Two of them, joined at the hip,
The strangest MRDP I ever did see on earth.
And what was really strange,
About angels, I mean,
Was they have no breasts,
Not even the merest vestigial Vestal vessels for the
Milk of human kindness....
Looking at them is hard on the eyes 'cause bisexually
They look, one way, male
And, another way, female
And even the (I think) female has breasts no bigger
Than a double AA cup, like a Pre-teenager
And the (I think) male looked like a boy
With a caved-in sunken chest and sticky-outee nipples
Like an bitch that just gave birth last week.
Their skin was slickly white, like a marbleized plaster bust
And the rock-like flesh did not give at all
To the pressure of the rocks and leaves and sticks
That were under them, pushing up, as they thrashed around.
But this same marble skin was covered with honey,
At least it looked like honey, or perhaps it was
The yellowed bee-extruded licorice-looking Ambrosial
Sweat of Angels
Who, flying in the night, connect (by accident)
Crashing together like blind seagulls (at least
That's the story they'll tell later).
But here they were, stuck together like two dogs
Caught and helpless in their passion, needing a bucket of water
Thrown on them.
And as they rolled across the grass, the leaves
Stuck to their waxy, honeyed limbs, like rose petals
Clinging to the bees that had assaulted them (sexually).
Taking pity on their sufferings, I found a long limb
Broken in a storm from an old elm (useless for a fireplace)
And, raising it over my head, brought it down across their
Head&shoulders repeatedly, again and again, until
In more than mortal pain&anguish, they pulled apart
And then, without a by-your-leave, or thanks (to me) of any kind
They sprouted enormous wings and flapping
Lifted themselves into the empty sky.
Nothing else of note happened that day
Except my hands--even to this day--have the smell
Of burnt cat-piss, just like an elm branch thrown in the fire.
You don't believe me? Here, smell my finger.
-----------------------------------------------
Eric Dutton suggests that "MRDP" stands for Mystical Realization of
Divine Providence, and another reader suggests Magical Realist Double Penetration, but the reader can choose whatever phrase seems most appropriate.
This poem was first published in Arkansas Literary Forum
http://fac.hsu.edu/beggsm/ALF/2003/lee2.htm
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