Barf and Diabetic Bitches

So a zillion years ago, when I was taking a poetry class with this really weird dude, we had a chat about things in excess.  He showed us this particular video located belooooow, which describes the character Gary in Team America puking his guts out--way more than is humanly possible.  It's disgusting and funny at the same time, but as it continues to just pour out, the viewer begins to feel somewhat uncomfortable.  It's an awkward kind of funny, because it's just so much that it shouldn't be funny.  It just kind of leaves you with this queazy feeling after a while.  Perhaps you start to say to yourself, "Oh man, please stop--oh no.  There he goes again."



In large part, this idea of excess seems to be the main purpose of Sharon Mesmer's book, Annoying Diabetic Bitch.  The very first poem, of the same name, essentially lists off a whole bunch of iterations of this simple phrase, throwing in all sorts of other rude titles and nasty things.  It's uncensored and unpleasant.  The rest of the book follows a similar
On a personal level, I typically try to avoid this sort of profanity.  I don't swear and I try to keep my language clean and respectful.  I've never even seen Team America.  I browsed through Annoying Diabetic Bitch and read several poems.  While not all of them are as profane as the first, the theme is easy to deduce.  Again, uncensored and vulgar.  Not my cup of tea.
I get the message, but I'm not interested in reading line upon line, page upon page, of angsty profanity, monkey penises or the fantasies one can imagine doing with the Walmart greeter.

Jen Currin's works

 I'm going to say it outright, I have a hard time reading poetry.
After having written several full-length novels, I think it's safe to say I have a very narrative mind.  I like hearing stories, and I like telling stories.  There's a structure involved that poetry pretty much completely disregards.  Class discussions help open my mind open up to the experience poetry has to offer, but reading it by myself, I feel as though poems are just words on a page, and I'm missing some secret that other people can see.  I'm sure as this class continues, I'll learn more properly how to read a poem, or look for the abstract meanings behind the words, but right now I'd say I look at things more at a face value.
So it is with Jen Currin's poetry in the chapbook, The Ends.  I can't say I drew anything from any of the poems in specific.  I search more for an emotional feeling rather than determining what the author means by combing certain words or phrases  The first few poems for me had a very heavy, high-impact feeling to them. I enjoyed the poem "To Steal Your Bells and Red Animals" especially for this reason.
The fourth stanza in particular is noteworthy,
"Grief has never been so generous. / It lifts its fingers from my mouth / and I am alone."  It seems to summon an image as grief as a physical object, something close.  A lover almost, lying beside the narrator, but even that too leaves them alone. Then, there's nothing but emptiness.  Oh, I don't know.
The last stanza too, summons an emotional experience, but what exactly the poet wishes to convey is lost on me.  All I feel is somber significance.  And I love it.
Something else I do appreciate with poetry is the unique combinations or words and phrases that I as a fiction author would never otherwise see.  Things that would simply not make sense otherwise, even in a dream.  My favorite example of this in the poem "Black Purple," in the last stanza.
"The road is a scarf you wrap around them."
Whoa.  Wow!  It's concrete, it's physical.  A road is something that certainly and painfully exists, and scarves too, but here it's being used in such an impossible sense.  It's crazy!  It's wild!  I don't get it, but I love it!  Is there something to get?  Anyway, there are several examples of similar unique combinations, but that one is my favorite.  It causes me to stutter, almost, as my narrative mind tries to picture what exactly that might look like.
My favorite poem by far was "The Story of the Rifle."  This one is arguably the most narrative out of the entire book, opening with the lines, "They went deeper into their shared delusion / by marrying and having a child."  Right away, in two short lines, lies the plot and background for two complicated, abstract characters.  I want to know more about them, and what exactly makes them delusional, and what brought them together.  The rest of the poem reads somewhat like a short story, ending with the woman telling the child to run away into the forest while she "dreamed of polished rifles."  Even rereading it, and the line before, I wonder if she has already killed the husband, or shortly plans to.  It's an amazing way to convey such a message, and through the way it is written, I think the message is more powerfully delivered in these few short, punctual lines than an three-to-four page short story could have done.
I'd like to see if I can produce something similar...

Maybe I'll figure this poetry thing out after all.

Snakebite

 I was thinking of inserting some pictures or a link to the effects of rattlesnake venom on the human body.  I'll spare you this time.  At any rate, if you want a fast way to lose your lunch, I suggest looking it up.  Pretty gross.

Among other pleasant things, rattlesnake venom breaks down the tissue of their prey, helping them to digest it better.  So when bitten, the area surrounding will burn away.  Again, gross.

So too is the effect of words.  Words are beautiful and amazing, but also incredibly powerful. A small "snakebite" may at first glance only seem like two tiny puncture wounds--but we cannot understand the damage that occurs under the surface. Some of us are more tolerable of such poisons, and can easily shrug it off, while others are severely allergic.

I just looked at more pictures.  Yep.  Still gross.

Here is a draft of a poem designed to convey the damage words can cause using this same snakey metaphor.

It sits between the grass
strikes unexpected
wounding, crippling,
tripping, sprawling.
The poison settles in
creeps through veins, tainting flesh
tearing cells, curling apart proteins, peeling apart delicate structures
bit by bit, piece by piece.
Disease takes hold, maggots grow
eating, devouring. Consuming weakened tissue
further weakening, further spreading.
Contaminated carrion. Still awake, but deadly, dangerous, tainted.
Rotting flesh, gangrenous appetite.
Into the beating heart, inside the shining brain
stinking pus, coiling parasites
the body reduced to pathetic weakness
lying still, hardly breathing, festering.
A hive. A hive of rotten meat and putrid air.
The beating stops. The heart twitches then dies
the body remains. Exposed beige bones and stretched tendons
matted hair and sunken spaces
a shell of what once was.
Sometimes I wonder
the significance of the phrase
"I will not say."

Ambiguity.

Ambiguity.
The idea of conveying a message through ambiguous means is certainly an interesting one. Telling the story without actually telling the story.


The Fate of Bullets

Still lifeless.  Body long gone cold.
How long has it been?  How long has it been there?
Eyes vacant--hollowed.
Eyes that gazed.  Eyes that pried.  Eyes that stare with lingering interest.
Stared at the body lying nearby.
The body she undressed with her eyes.  Set above the lips he kissed.
A wedding ring.  Trapped between the floorboards.  Caked blood.
Nearly matching the bronze of bullet casings.
Once six.  Now three.  Lifeless on the ground.
Lifeless as the bodies
The other three in the gun will never share the fate.
Never end a life. To each his own.
How long will they remain there?
The bodies will rot.  The bullets remain.

Found Poetry Concept

I'm actually fairly fond of the idea of found poetry.  The idea of catching something beautiful in everyday conversation, or in otherwise mundane things.
The concept brings to mind the idea that with everything that's been already been said and done, anything we write (or indeed, every idea we have) is just clever plagiarism.  I work at the movie theater, and part of my job is checking the theaters partway through movies to make sure everything is working and people aren't rowdy.  I'm going to start writing down the first line I hear as I walk in.  If anybody is guilty of cliche phrases or unoriginality, it would be Hollywood.  I'm going to collect these lines and see what sort of beauty manifests itself--either in the direct random addition of one line onto another, or after a bit of tinkering.  We'll see how creative Hollywood can be.

Lines so far:

What did you do, Mack?

Bring him in.

Do you have problems with this system?

They werd off my path, so I never dared

Well, you're going to have to decide what's more important, baby?

What lies beyond?

Well, this is inhuman--even for you

Why me?!

Cup of tea?

It's not quite what I expected

Hey, don't ask me about my life

I travel light, only the barest essential

Come back

I'd lay down my life for my country

Are you paying attention?

His parents died last year

Hey, let me read that

You don't seriously think I did this?

You kook really great too

Get up

Look at you

Follow me

Oh, I don't like sandwiches

Now is it true you've been injecting yourself with semen from baby pigs?

In love you

Over here

That'd be the one

What're you doing here?

Why don't you put your head down, TeX?

The moon is sinking fast

Hey, you ready to go?

If you fire Allan, well then you'll have to fire me too

I am lucky to have you

Stop the cars

Its going to be okay

Come on, don't talk about it.

It has begun

A guy with a pin to burst your bubble

Sounds glorious

Is that a threat?

And you don't think that qualifies you as a certified prodigy?

That wasn't an accident

What makes you think they're from here?

I know it isn't ordinary, but...I never liked ordinary

How can you be so calm about this?

Don't tell my wife, she might tipped that number

I need an analysis on this

We've got to present this properly

We are not dead

Are you recording?

Some advice about keeping secrets: its a lot easier if you don't know them in the first place

Aw, give up

Leave the light on

What's going on?

It should have a vertical reach of about 250'

There's only one thing in this world that matters now, understand?

Too much?

These children are starving

Her arms aren't swinging--she's carrying something.

Put your arms behind your back

And it's had a tremendous effect on her knees

You can't tell them about the attack

Hello

Blog.  Bliggety blog.
Here it is.  Here is it.  My blog.  The blog.
Poetry blog.  Here.  Now.  At your eyes.
In your eyes.  Deep.  Poetry.
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