An Introduction to French Poetry: Artaud

ALL WRITING IS GARBAGE,
according to Artaud, the madman,
and the older I get, the more I agree;
Chaucer, Shakespeare, Goethe...pick one:
It's all refuse, debris,
spilling from the mind of man,
chasing God's imagination
(we'll never catch up...trust me),
leading, at best, to models of DNA,
or atoms,
houses built with the spokes and wheels
of  Tinker Toys, Lego worlds,
where descriptions don't adequately describe,
explanations fail to explain,
and dialog is as wooden
as the First Lady's face,
there staring from a pike,
the clarity of her character development
as hopeless as Modigliani eyes.
It's garbage.
PEOPLE WHO COME OUT OF NOWHERE AND TRY TO PUT INTO WORDS
ANY PART OF WHAT GOES ON IN THEIR MINDS ARE PIGS.
That offends me, but still,
THE LITERARY SCENE TODAY IS A PIGPEN.
I didn't say it, he did,
 but then,
Antonin Artaud was a madman,
and yet,
even our own sweet Emily,
with downcast eyes, whispered,
"Much madness is divinest sense."

(August 1986)

Around Kenner's Bend

Two a.m., you're down in a grain barge on the Mississippi.  Around the river's bend is New Orleans, a smiling old woman with too much make-up.  The firehose throbs as you blast rotten kernels from their cracks.  Crazy Joe is sitting in a triangle of half-light down on the low end.  He's keeping the pump clear, cramming his fist up into its guts.  You're wet to the waist and covered with bits of corn from the knees down.  The barge simmered in the summer sun for weeks; the darkness stinks.  Someone approaches making tiny figure-eights with a pale red ember, holds it to your lips.

A ladder leads to a square of stars where the air comes from.  You turn your face up to it and yell, "YO!  TURN HER OFF!"  You drop the hose, and it ascends, the nozzle scraping on the black barge bed, goes clattering up the rungs.  There's a line of men with brooms and squeegees coming up behind.  Crazy Joe is on his knees; the end is nearing.

When the last fistful of corn and cup of water has been sucked up, there's the inevitable bump and push, mad race for the stairs, hands clawing at your legs as you climb, but once out, there's the equality of naked angels standing beneath the stars and beautiful moonlight swan dives into the Mississippi.


(Arkansas Magazine, Arkansas Democrat, July 27, 1986)

The Good Neighbor

     The evergreen overrun of Balboa Park--9th Street, San Diego, senile mansions sliced into apartments--housed a crosscut of American blood: black, white, Mexican...Vietnamese.  Good neighbors were those you didn't see or hear and only met in passing for hello, the weather and a squint for the dead bird or rat in the dumpster, no doubt.

     One time, the death smell grew and with it conversation; the first rushed you along, while the second forced a stop.  Two trash days came and went, but the stench, nearly visible, remained.  We guessed cat, then dog, and searched, but failed to find one.  Then someone thought to ask about the old man who lived upstairs.  No one had seen him in weeks.  We climbed the stairs, knocked, and got no answer, so boosted a  young man up to the balcony, his feet on our shoulders.  He pulled himself up and over the ironwork, and, looking through the French doors, called down his description:  "It's him, all right!  He's slumped over in an easy chair, dark, slimy looking!  The smell's choking me; I'm coming down!"

     Tina, from number two below, telephoned.  No one knew the old man's name, knew of any relative, but the coroner came flanked by two men dressed in white, angels with hairy arms and black shoes.  They picked him up so gently, the old man fell apart, so they shoveled him into a bag and rolled him away on a cart.


(March 1986)

LC-39

Egret and blue heron
wade through reeds.
See those bubbles?
That's an alligator,
or a really big turtle.
Oh, and look!
There's a bald eagle
on the water tower
with Launch Complex 39-B
in the background.
Do you think they wonder
where the smoke and the thunder
and the fires of freedom have gone?


(Nov 2012)

Thems Po Little Minks

I heard it said some mama minks
eats they young before thems think.
Thems gets all excited, raises a stink,
and eats all they babies
(thems po little minks).

Now, I figures it logical
thems mama minks
has missed something somewheres,
missed too many winks,
maybe thems wakes up with too many kinks,
stays out too late, has too many drinks,
comes home all dizzy and ready to sink,
and eats all they babies
(thems po little minks).


(1974)