Too Familiar

Cautiously, feeling tenderly with her
Hands. It was absurd.

Too familiar. Though it was
Too soon. There was still some...

Might be. She started to...
On her own. Deciding there that...

It happened to him. He turned back.
And wondered what wasn't and who had.

"Rrose Selavy" by Robert Desnos (Translation)

2. Rrose Selavy asks whether the Flowers of the Evil have changed her pud's manners: What does Maude think?

7. O my head, a fading mother-of-pearl star.

15. Lost on the endless sea, how will Rrose Selavy eat iron after eating her hands?

27. Time is a nimble eagle in a temple.

53. It is more important for a poet to be honest than to be polished.

-- Robert Desnos

[Note: I don't read or write French so I used an on-line translator to provide the literal translation and worked from there.

"27." is as translated by the fine folks at Babelfish.

In the original "2.", Desnos plays on the similarity of "phalle" and "Omphale," who enslaved Hercules and forced him to do "woman's work" such as spinning wool. The best I could do was to allude to Bea Arthur.

Click here to read all of Desnos' Rrose Selevay poems in French.]

Falling

Falling upon it, she left.

Not walking but falling.
He ran after her, and he fell.

He should not have run.

As If It Was

i was daydreaming when i pulled up
it was not generally considered
she had asked the question
the woman said, and the answer was
experience no matter what

we were all a little
we knew we should leave
driving slowly down
our energy spent. partly it was
youth, i suppose, and all
but however as if it was

to the last, we
raised our eyes and saw

this then, it is the

that which always
that had always been
never find her in this

never find her moved forward up
two steps forward one step back

The Wedding Dress

He had moved his mother's wedding dress
time after time, from apartment to
apartment, city to city

Friend to friend, lover to lover

Until we found him hanging
A white apparition in a candlelit room
Acrid myrrh failing to mask the death-stench of shit

"A fruit on a loop," the cop called him

[Note: Inspired by an anecdote CA Conrad told on the Poetry Foundation's "Off the Shelf" podcast.]

Resolve Steeled

For Dan and Pat

Even though he felt his chances small
He would resolve to steel his resolve
To ask the young woman out on a date
To share his love for dancing to jazz

Western Romance

Kiss (Tony)

Elizabeth Peyton, "Kiss (Tony)," 2000, lithograph.

"Impecunious" means you're one broke-ass nigga
Pissed-off that you can't afford to drink away the
Shitty feeling following an equally shitty
One-night stand with some dude who had you
Convinced that he could cop some excellent weed
That he said this trippy scene sorely needed
Looking back now so many details seem portentous
And you're going to have to emend the story if
You don't want it to end with you caterwauling
The veracity of your being one broke-ass nigga

* * * * * *
[Note: Written as a continuation of an exercise introduced at a workshop called "High Art/Low Language: Experiments in Poetic Style," conducted by Eileen G'Sell at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, where Elizabeth Peyton's exhibition "Ghost" is currently on display through April 18.

Participants in the workshop viewed the exhibit and picked two images to write poems about, choosing from five "high culture" and five "low culture" words that they had drawn from a hat. For this exercise, I used all of the words in the order I wrote them in my notebook.

My poem from the workshop is here.

Song for the South

So there he was, Ezra, impounded in Pisa, accused of treason
Now trading tobacco with fellow inmates forbidden to talk to him
Colored mostly, soldiers fighting for a country

That hardly fought for them. Taken away like Louis Till after
3:00 a.m. line-ups to be hung for murder and rape.
Not even 3 weeks in the gorilla cage could keep him from

Praising Il Duce in 11 lines on a piece of toilet paper
And later writing his cantos on a table made from a packing crate
B H.H. Edwards after he had gotten the charity.

Would he or anyone have guessed that 10 years later
Louis Till's 14-year-old son would be brutally murdered
For the crime of whistling at a white woman in a store

In Mississippi, where the accused were acquitted? Though
After the trial they were happy to brag to Life magazine
About what they had done as if they had done no wrong.

Distinguished Senators Stennis and Eastland looked, then, at
Louis' hanging and announced themselves satisfied that the
Same bad blood flowed in the veins of the son as the father.

Asked and Answered

"There," he said, turning toward her
shouting out the phrases that
now seemed to him as he
closed the door behind him to
answer the questions she had
voiced.

[Slightly edited from original post on Casino*Town*Poets, January 13, 2011.]

The Boy's Hand

could at last have his
hands which were
together on one bed playing
he muttered slowly
hands in her lap
the tips of his fingers
traced a smooth curve
was wet and his and
his finger as he felt
the boys hand
over it, the girl and then
him to his feet
to her, pushing the girl
to one side of the bed
there, holding on
between the palms of her hands
she set it down again
the boys hand

Gone

an impression of what had happened

sure what it was about

knew about it that was that

the point was in. there was nothing

because to us, the story was over

all that she carried

we who have had almost

and were not there couldn't of course

The Finding

we had heard about it on the
television once and knew
it would amuse him -- yes -- that
we would one morning find him -- too --
lying on his back, his bed
covered with a worn quilt
loose enough to hide -- well --
not enough. it did not matter.
we held his hand, moved it.
we began to realize
therefore, why we were frightened;
why we began to fall back.

What Remains of the Day

Drunk and broiling in the summer sun
Telling a dude from that one band
About how you'd killed yourself
With a gunshot to your head
One of their songs playing on
Endless repeat.

What remains of the day remains to be seen

I remember his sad, shocked stare.
What could he have said?
He was the guitar player not the singer.

Drifting

he had kept the peace
had drifted nearer
yet there was nothing
and if she was still
given to asking questions
but one of them must
at that instant
and then he was and
he saw that
he did not know
and as much as it went
he had come to the end
heard no sound
it was not what he was
but what he had done

Frustration

laying naked in
his bed waiting desirously
but he sent you home

Dead and Drunk Everyone

everyone was dead and i went on drunk.

dead was drunk everyone and i went on.

everyone was drunk and i went on dead.

drunk was dead everyone and i went on.

dead was everyone and i went on drunk.

drunk was everyone and i went on dead.

dead was drunk everyone and i went on.

i was dead and everyone went on drunk.

drunk was dead everyone and i went on.

i was drunk and everyone went on dead.

dead was drunk everyone and i went on.

on i went dead and everyone was drunk.

on i went drunk and everyone was dead.

Pornographic Poem for Charles Bukowski

"Baby," he said,
spattering
on her lips.

"Jackie and John (Jackie fixing John’s hair)" After Elizabeth Peyton by Claire Medol Hyman

Elizabeth Peyton, Jackie and John (Jackie fixing John’s hair), 1999

Encased enframed by waning waves of blue blocks
Forlorn, tears not worn embodied the white princess trite
Patting not a jock's cap on dweeby boy, wet behind the ears.

A pair, Her Fairness rains down splat at that whatchamaallit's hair
Eton style hiding youth's Rock a hard guile, organ loss, his
          Mojo is a toss.
At heel a watch dog's pace in white space, a triangular
          gumshoe tails
a Dicks' opposing pace.

Not a fleshly rhythmed walk, bi-unisoned march. Ready up? Hup,Hup.
Letting gas, no faults imbued, bespoke at mass. B'rup, b'rup.
Native American White Soxed princeling S.O.B. steps in tune to
          pie-hole dishonesty
Clothed up tight they walk our rights under camera bites.
To be or Naught to be wussed out on vicissitudes as mother
          Jack's off, ew! surreptitious frights.

-- Claire Medol Hyman

Note: Written as an exercise at a workshop called "High Art/Low Language: Experiments in Poetic Style," conducted by Eileen G'Sell at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, where Elizabeth Peyton's exhibition "Ghost" is currently on display through April 18.

His Heart Is One Color

Elizabeth Peyton, "Kiss (Tony)," 2000, lithograph.

Impecunious he leans against the wall
Knee to chest, Hand to heart,
A tear on his cheek, trying
Hard not to caterwaul
Thinking of his idols -- Kabuki-faced
Indomitable heroes who never fall

Note: Written as an exercise at a workshop called "High Art/Low Language: Experiments in Poetic Style," conducted by Eileen G'Sell at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, where Elizabeth Peyton's exhibition "Ghost" is currently on display through April 18.

In brief, the exercise was to look at one of Peyton's prints representing someone from "low" culture, in this case a young man wearing a t-shirt with a picture of the rock band Kiss on it, and write a poem in response using words drawn from our own observation of the print as well as randomly chosen "twenty-dollar words." (The randomly chosen words that I used were "impecunious" and "caterwaul.")

A further challenge was to attempt a traditional verse from such as a sonnet. In the short time in which we had to write that didn't work out so well for me. I did manage to rhyme "wall," "caterwaul," and "fall."

A fun exercise and a great workshop.