curioCity kills Bloody Marys
maraschino cherries Pop guns
gang bangs poontang rat snitches
and Edsel squeals
cathouse beldams melt hams down
dog days nightmares ride hunchbacks
warning lights stop critters peeling
rubber dead in their tracks
cornered but ornery
disembodied vulvas bare back
their teeth like
the Cheshire cat.
(First published in Maverick Magazine 6/7)
A list poem, full of allusions, from the beginning ("Pulp Fiction") to the end ("Alice in Wonderland") and I can imagine this poem illustrated by, so to speak, De Kooning's "Woman 1."
ReplyDeleteIf taken seriously, the poem presents a nightmare (or a jumble of nightmares) yet the energy and pace, the obvious pleasure in language and word play, the wit, and the propulsion provided in part by the lack of punctuation, all play against the fear, disgust and implied regrets, so that what do we end up with? That toothy smile! And the urge to reread the thing repeatedly, run it like a loop. A disturbingly pleasing powerful poem.
One example of the sensitivity to language: I had never thought of the words "cornered" and "ornery" as related, but obviously they are separated by only a few letters.
One of the virtues of the poem is that the poet doesn't spell things out too much, trusts the reader to find his or her own meanings. . .
John,
ReplyDeleteLeave it to a careful reader like you to delve into this poem to find the meanings! Thanks once again for taking the time to take such a close look.