fried nihilism . . . too much writing. ROTA

(Revenge of the Anons)


Dialogue between a poem and a critique.

a play in iii acts


* * *

act i: el callo to battle

Call:

El Culo de Bettie

Miss Betty Haas bent over to fix the flat
on her Model T while on the way to church,
ay, dios mio, el culo de Bettie tan chulo,

Response:

Is he making fun of me, or is this postmodernism? No, it is too ironic. It is an evil influx, an evil spirit, a troll, an anon, a lurker, a dreaded botherer, a snuffleuppagas . . .


but no, I could just be getting paranoid
at the end of a strange Saturday night.
He is channeling the spirit of Richard Cory,
Arlington Robinson's man who put a bullet through.
Robinson -- when I was younger, I used to go
sit up on a rise of trees overlooking the supermarket,
drink beers out of a backpack, and read "Richard Cory"
and "Miniver Cheevy," and then Spoon River Anthology,
"Petit, a Poet," and then Pascal. I read
Arlington Robinson -- his sonnets. Yes. And
Spoon River -- this in my apartment
in Durham. The condo. Read
"Twentieth Century Pleasures"
by Hass
also
"blackberries" -- his sex/love poem -- also loss/death poem --


Call:

there was a nail in her tire.
Oh, no, she broke a fingernail on the Goodyear,
but, oh, my god, what a fine rear.

Response:
this is polemic. richard cory swinging a jackie chan machete.


Henry's Mr. Bones. Shakespeare lurks, a collapsed
doll, in the corner. A spanish blade
gleams
the open drawer
exposed the mind all day
Phil Larkin
I can sniff him dying
in all his verse
he's dying
why is that
even in his pseudo-laureate poems
(bet he kicked himself on that one)
and Ted Hughes (the wanking wife killer)
got it
channeling Sappho
channeling muse
channeling Ricky Martin
channeling mucus
channeling hocus feloniocus
hawking any damn thing
hakking
hakking cough
Miniver Cheevy
. . . with a hakking cough. A hakking coff. Gogol.


act ii -- Negative Critique Virus Downloaded SIR
Wait a second, they’re sexualizing it. Gross.

this person {self} has troubles with sex. Note to self {"je est un autre"): cut down on sex poetry references on this blog, for the square's sake. Sucks.
{jer eightn oon aught)


Call:

All the men driving by
almost rear-ended the cars in front
because they were driving with her backside.

Response:
awful to not appreciate sunlight.
what was the lost sense of fasces
the extinction of gay
the dessication of backside
the burial of men
the staring of they

. . . incoherency, a joke, starts it. no. you missed it jack. at the edges of your dim sensibility. catch on again. Hunter S. Thompson spins
his cigarette
up in heaven above you, delightedly tapping ashes
over
across your fate . . . polluting the planet of the hoos . . .

I remember deepest vulnerabilities, too personal, burning:


*yawn* this is ado( hit-gut sense/of a failed friday night)lescent. It doesn’t have the heft of a real poem. It doesn’t save my life -- feeling from a great Dickinson poem. It does not try to warm me, as a person.
(speaking of my self)
Call:

Imagine yourself there, like that tire without air,
her fingers on your nuts,
turning each one counter-clockwise

until she’s finally done
and pulls the jack off--- {but why would it be said, unless a sort of bitter polemic? it makes me, jack, look like a dork. did he know my name is jack? is it an intentional pun? "A paranoid knows part of the truth" -- Pynchon.

the hot, deflated tire in her trunk.

Is that how Henry felt, watching her
stuff her luscious and delicious body
with creamed codfish
saucy steak-chips
limons pickles
with whatever what was
"what"
chicken paprika.

act iii -- who is this? I can't name names -- I don't wish to open light here. So Berryman jumped off the bridge. And the author of "Spoon River Anthology," had his name mistaken with somebody else, and Edgar Lee Masters peacefully quite separately slept.



Please disqualify me from the contest
because while I was looking at her ass
I was sneaking a peek at her breasts!



Response:
There is no poetry here. Yet it is all poetry. It is natural to the point of sunlight. So there is poetry. Indicative of limits.
But for an adolescent, maybe something
more beautiful -- I remember when I was
in love with Rimbaud. From a distance.
Not idiotic like Verlaine.
Or Sterling Morrison,
who passed of cancer.
Or the short girl drummer, Mo Tucker,
who works at WalMart.
See?to thousands, I am a curio . . .
(c)2005 by el culero
blessings . . . blessures . . .