Been a tough day, hasn't it? One of the House Republicans from Texas wants to personally nuke Syria, even though they gave us Saddam's half-brother's head on a platter. The boys at Powerline still have the heads up the proverbial wazoo, and more bombs are bursting out in Iraq. Need to getaway? Well I have the answer:
Monday Evening Internet Poetry!
Each Monday morning and evening I'll post a diary about a poet I discovered online whose work I find worth sharing. A link to the this morning's diary featuring TE Ballard's poetry can be found here, the same place each time you will always find a link to the last diary in this series. By clicking on those links, you can track back to all the prior diaries and catch up on all the great poets and poetry, that I, in my less than infinite wisdom have arbitrarily selected for your enjoyment.
Tonight's poet is Joe Green, and Joe is well . . . different (but in a good way -- I think).
More after the fold . . .
Joe, frankly, is a poet who defies any attempt at the easy, one paragraph categorization. The best description I've found of his verse was in this
review in Jacket of Fulcrum 3, an annual poetry anthology, in which some of his poems appear:
Joe Green's poetry has a savage wit and a plaintive, enchanting innocence, like some of Joe Brainard's drawings. He has one poem about Kim Novak and James Stewart in Bell, Book and Candle that perfectly expressed the Technicolor genius of Richard Quine, that film's unsung genius director. And he has other poems about Rin Tin Tin, the hero Shepherd of early US serial film, and about "The Lonliest Ranger," that makes me think he is lighting out, fast, for Henry Darger territory. Look out for them little girls!
So be warned, this is not your Dad's brand of poet (or Mom's for that matter). Now for a few samples of his stuff. The first is from the online journal, Perihelion, the now classic:
Letter from a Dog Before Troy
Dear Penelope,
It's windy here. Nine years in a tent on the beach.
Ulysses says they know what they're doing.
Right.
Nine years and for what?
What's nine years to them?
Most of my life.
I'm tired. Don't even ask me about the gods.
There's a limit to loyalty.
But you already know that.
I know about the puppies.
You should have told me.
She told me, of course.
I don't care.
Just get them out of Ithaca.
By the time you read this
I'll be gone. I have..what..four more years?
Going to someplace where there are no men.
No gods.
Maybe a few rabbits.
A second selection, the even more infamous
(Quicktime audio link of the poet reading this poem with bongos!)
Insect Clerks of Neiman Marcus
Lo! The Gods and Goddesses of the new mythology.
The Goddesses are crocodiles in communion dresses!
They wear Adolf of Dachau designer jeans!
They wear necklaces of bird skeletons!
The Gods wear shrouds of petroleum jelly!
They brilliantine their hair.
They turn their mild, Belsen eyes on you
"May I help you sir?" O do not stare!
At secret luncheons they devour lark's hearts.
They devour the intestines of mummys.
They prefer larks three to one.
Three to one.
They have never murdered a baby
Who didn't deserve it.
Listen O listen!
Hear the twitching of their delicate attennae!
Haie! They come! They come!
Dragging their long
and swelling abdomens!
The insect clerks of Neiman Marcus!
The insect clerks of Neiman Marcus!
The insect clerks of Neiman Marcus!
Beware their dread ovipositors!
Beware their dread ovipositors!
Beware their dread ovipositors!
The insect clerks have come.
There are trapdoors in Cosmetics!
There are trapdoors in Lingerie!
There are trapdoors in Men's Accessories!
There is a secret button in the elevator.
Nightly they descend into vast catacombs.
Buffy! Meagan! Tom! Wesley!
They hang upside down!
They copulate like bats!
They whisper to each others in tha languages
Of prehistoric fungi!
And, like Gods everywhere,
They are always hungry.
O Holy Mother!
The store is closing!
They know who you are!
Run! O RUN!
There is a trapdoor in Customer Service.
Down you go
down
down
down
They carry you effortlessly through the tunnels.
They carry you past rooms.
Rooms where small blue clouds weep!
Rooms full of angel guts!
Rooms full of bearded foetuses in bronze caskets.
Rooms where your wife makes love to eels!
(Your wife has a certain eel sex appeal)
Rooms where sores run naked on chandeliers!
Rooms where sewage rats read poetry
In pink peignoirs!
O what is this big room?
It is the Mad Queen's chamber.
It is the throneroom of hearts.
It looks. It looks.
The inside of your brain.
The indifferent mandibles let you drop
To the marble floor.
They quietly suck out your eyes.
And then
Ah! Then!
The Mad Queen comes.
Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!
The dread ovipositer.
You lay paralyzed.
You look out into the "Crevices of Night."
After 80,000 years
your tears
turn to pearls.
Oh, those were pearls that were his eyes.
Nothing of him but doth suffer.
The best place to find Joe's poetry online is at his poetry forum The Forbidden Story where he posts as Monsieur Literary Lifter, The Lonliest Ranger, Rin-Tin-Tin and any number of other pseudonymous personalities, each with their distinctive poetic style.
Enjoy the poetry and have a great night. See you all next Monday
