Mark WINTER
Sans Groucho
We had a marvelous time at the opera,
Eating our curds and whey.
I noticed with my spyglass
a man reading Edgar Allen Poe
hunched in the front row,
behind the Irish man eating the gemsbok.
I sallied down to where he lounged,
rolling in hairless leather shoes,
the quaintest smile
perched like faded plastic fruit
across my supple, expressive face.
"Sir, is it true, by any stretch,
by what you've read,
that Edgar Allen Poe combed his hair
with a wagon wheel
and died with a toothache in his heel?"
Burping like a hairy ballerina
he turned as only someone in soiled burlap underwear could,
and said,
"Young man, ah, young man, ah,
You seem to think Poe is literature
like Sister Mary Elephant squeezing the boils on her cat.
Why, what if I, smitten, smitten by wind,
rain, and soil, were to read and answer
all of my own questions,
I'd be no better off than Franz Kafka
stroking his just-healed scars.
I could, then, would it, like,
kind of almost standing in the rain."
I caught a glimpse of what he was saying
and panicked.
Pivoting like an ironing board,
I spewed like river spittle
green and nasty Mississippi gelatin
back into my purple veined
theatre seat, wary of the puny man in the next seat
whose black eyebrows touched
in the middle of his stomach.
—March 27, 1979 & September 12, 2003
Untitled
The poet stood before us,
his hair encircled mouth puckered, like
the spotty end of the large intestine
with small globules of brown excrement
stuck in the gnatty hairs,
and he read his poetry.
However, it's 10:30 pm and I've got some
ramblin' thoughts to snare for a cool,
laid back poem.
Maybe something creative, using
witty phrases like "a blind certified public
accountant sucking a duck's ass,"
or, "her tongue tasted like sweaty spider
monkey's scrotums."
Whimsical, yes, full of whimsy.
Say "Pardon me, I'm full of whimsy,"
as you fan the air behind you and the guy in the
green prescription sunglasses
and silver star ear ring
was so pompously assholish,
nothing against assholes, we all have one or two
depending upon the size of our families,
and I'm not saying his poetry was bad, it's just
that his ego bulged like the eyes of
the cocker spaniel man who jacked off in the
Golden Nugget Pancake House on Belmont.
But, I think, well,
you're the perfect candidate for "Bull Worker,"
where supposedly sane men develop breasts
the size of chrome Cadillac bumpers.
2.
Then, at least, your chest wouldn't
cast notched shadows like a picket fence
in the overgrown dandelions.
Thin skin flint toothpick,
you curtain rod, you wiggly-slimy electrical cord,
you woodwind instrument in khaki pants and
Birkenstocks! And "as soft farewells
whispered over the coffin
we're poisoned with venom with each breath we take,
from the brown sulfur chimney
and the black highway snake."
Bleach blond thighs and chicken toes,
Barbie dolls writhing in death throes,
and you wonder why you were hated in high school.
Bitter? Who me? Why should I want to disembowel all
of those fucking lickers of cattle pricks who always
made a point of leaving carpet tacks in my underwear?
Who's bitter? Maybe before, a year
or so ago, after it happened. But now I'd
rather fleck and foam at the mouth over
Dial extra-dry, anti-cling, anti-static, anti-hystamine,
anti-nuclear, anti-family, anti-human,
anti-perspirant.
And then we're supposed to believe
those real, honest to Jesus Christ our lord and savior
families who say they've been
"Washing their hair with Dog Vomit Shampoo"
are actually real families?
3.
"Hey, yeah, my husband Bob has been
washing his hair with Dog Vomit
for years, and we're still
married, god damn it!"
Fellini Over For Dinner With Pals
orange and black silhouettes of ruined cities
sit haunched in back-slapping, "hey, how ya doin'
pal!" contemplation of the absolute worthlessness
of despairing human energy.
Fellini looked up from his
spiral notebook, his yellow pencil, a 28-year-old virgin
pulsing between his fingers,
and coughed like a diesel truck engine turning over. Fellini had
a cold and felt like his lungs were tall black
stovepipe hats with Abraham Lincolns sitting under
them.
"I wonder if the American public can cope with
my imagery? Like I'm not saying that it
makes me look like a genius, but . . . "
the black metallic screen door
peeled open under the guiding hand of Ingmar Bergman,
"Fuck you, Fellini! If you want to be a half-assed
philosophical type with morbidity ground into
the heel of his . . . "
"You bloody little pricks!
I've had about enough of this shit, now go home!"
mushed Alfred Hitchcock, leaping from the emerald sofa
like a crisp, white sheet, gunning them both down
with a Thompson air-cooled sub-machine gun.