Sadly, Life is a Carnival, Sad Sack

To be the life of the party, revelers 
Try to make the best of it, masking 

Their ugliness in everything 
They do—it’s true 

Of course, any mask can do the trick, 
But if I were you—and just for laughs— 

I’d try the one that looks like you.

Listening to Lorine

No puerile wishy-washy 

Wishing, hoping 
To find 

Singular words 
Like hers 

To sound out a life by. 

Huuklyeand Cinquor on A. Figwitt Cye-Cophant's Introspection: Examining a Postmodern Mythopoetic (in Blank Verse)*

*The Laistrygonian Press, Homer Loomis, Idaho, 2012.


Let us marvel at how 
A. Figwitt Cye-Cophant created 

An incredible myth by doing nothing 
But gazing at his navel: 

No people, 
No tradition, 
No story, 
No history, 
No world view, 
No explanation, 
No wonder 

His lackeys are lapping it up— 
It’s unbelievable, lacking all imagination.
 

Moderator’s comments: It would have helped immensely if Cinquor had quoted some lines from Mr. Cye-Cophant’s book of poems to give us an idea of just how he was able to create a myth without incorporating any of the ingredients that make up one; as it is, Huuk’s throwaway middle stanza does nothing but summarize what’s missing and we are left to fill in the empty spaces of Figwitt’s waste land with the detritus left behind in the wake of his “earth-shaking” effort. Nor does the reference to Mr. Cye-Cophant’s omphaloskepsis assist us in delving further into the recesses of what Cinquor describes as the poet’s non-imagination. Huuk knows better than to leave us dangling like this—the least he could have done was throw us an umbilical cord. Unfortunately, it remains but a shallow effort leading us to re-examine the criteria for permitting him to use this platform as a sounding line. 

NB: Huuk’s reference to Cye-Cophant’s lack of a “world view” reminds me of what George Seferis once said in an interview in The Paris Review #50: ” . . .I have no idea about philosophical positions and world views. You know, whenever world views begin interfering with writing—I don’t know. I prefer world views in the sort of dry, repulsive, and (I don’t know how to put it) prosaic way. I don’t like people who try to express world views in writing poetry. I remember once I had a reading in Thessalonike, and a philosopher stood up and asked: ‘But what, after all, Mr. Seferis, is your world view?’ And I said: ‘My dear friend, I’m sorry to say that I have no world view. I have to make this public confession to you that I am writing without having any world view. I don’t know, perhaps you find that scandalous, sir, but may I ask you to tell me what Homer’s world view is?’ And I didn’t get an answer.” 

NBB: Also in that issue, right after the Seferis interview, there is a long excerpt from Jim Carroll’s manuscript-in-progress of his book The Basketball Diaries and I don’t have to tell you who the poetry editor of The Paris Review was back then, do I?

Have a Good Day, etc., Period

Back from my morning walk, I think 
To stop and have a chat with Athena, 
The filly who grazes now and then 
In the empty lot next to our house. 

Tired of anything resembling pedestrian
Human communication, I try my best 
Using gestures and words full of guile 
To win her deepest equine attention. 

With a snort I think must be full of vexation, 
She throws back her head so as to throw me 
A glance that makes it perfectly clear 
She wants nothing to do with anything 

That smacks of polite conversation. 


NB: άλογος (adj.) = without (logical) speech—το άλογο (neut. noun), the Greek word for ‘horse’. 

Spring, Not Fall

Coming upon fallen 

Judas flowers on 
Old warped oak 

Table under tree, 
My six-year-old 

Niece asks me where 
They came from—this 

Leaves me dumbfounded, 
Though it should not— 

She cannot see how 
Innocent she is 

Nor for how long 
She will be.