DR. OMED, FROM THE SAME ROLL OF FILM (REMEMBER FILM?)
1699 shopping days until 13.0.0.0.0, 4 Ahau 3 K'ank'in.
Friend Jonah of Love During Wartime posted a poem back on April 12th, which I think is a very fine "last" poem, as he calls it, if indeed it were to be his last. I like the humor and the history in it. Jonah and I have been friends for thirty years, so I have a headstart on the rest of you. But you'll catch the drift, if the drift doesn't catch you first. I think all poets start writing their last poems at some point, some when very young, others when in their dotage. Last looks back "o'er travelled roads," as Whitman had it, after he rehearsed himself into the role of the "good grey poet." Rimbaud wrote his last poem, Une Saison en Enfer, threw down his pen and abandoned his muse at what--age 19? So I ask my fellow poets--Have you begun the work on your last poem(s) yet? I think I was about 39 when I started writing my first last poems--my first real last poems. Accomplishing the virtue of lastness in poetry is a not straightforward pursuit, it is devious, tricky, and oblique. It helps if you have reached middle age and your brain function has begun to decay. Metaphors have to be jury-rigged, and they must "shine in use." Here's the last of Jonah, and may there be many more lasts for him:
MY LAST POEM
My last poem will walk under storm-green skies past haunted duplexes through echoing culverts through knee-high grass. It will walk from New Jersey Pine Barrons and coast up Gravity Hill; it will walk from mother's horror to father's death; it will walk from the myth of Saturn to the mouth of the whirlwind. It will walk all this way to sit on my chest, some cat-like Buddha, to flip through the uneven pages of my unjustified heart.
My last poem and my first poem will sit on the front porch and tell tall tales about the neighbors. They'll compare rhetoric and the scope of their rhythm. "You've got a charming rhyme scheme," my last poem will say; "You've got a mysterious metaphysic," my first poem will reply. And they'll write sketches of the wind while drinking green tea with a pinch of fresh mint and a spoon-full of local honey.
My last poem may have forgotten every cherished image; it may have lost its connection to each borrowed symbol and 40 years worth of repetends. It may find itself confronted by each unfinished stanza, every half-begun epic, each muse in passing and muse in waiting - each shopgirl, waitress, movie star, pew mate, class mate, anima projection - all the false goddesses and true harridans, all the true goddesses and faithless lovers. It may have forgotten their names in eternity. It may have lost its breath and its measured lines. It may not want a song or need one more sip of beer.
My last poem will shake your hand and greet you. It will welcome you like an old friend. It will walk with you anywhere.
Hail, Mother of Howls, we who have ears hear you. By the chill down the long bones, by the quaver of the pulse, we know your song, and we know this song has no words. Forgive us our words.
Hail, Bitch of Bitches, Alpha to all packs, Blessed are you among she-wolves, and blessed are the litters you whelp, the river of wolves that runs in our blood.
Hail, Mother Fang, you bite deep into our brains, past the clot of memory and language, you bite deep and we know again the smell of your must and the taste of beestings; we know again the tang of iron in hot blood; the communion of snarls over a fresh killl; we know again the taste of snow in deep winter trickling to a hunger-knotted stomach. Fangs of your fang, tongues of your tongue, feral children alone in the night, we give voice, and what music we make! We know the song has no words. Forgive us our words.
Hail, Bitch of Bitches, Alpha to all packs, Blessed are you among she-wolves, and blessed are the litters you whelp, the river of wolves that runs in our blood.
Note: The above is work-in-progress, or rather, liturgy-in-progress. As some of you know, Mrs. Dr. Omed has charged me with the task of composing what I like to call an Atheist Feminist liturgy, a body of work that will eventually comprise a sort of Book of Common Prayer for the unchurched--those who live their lives outside any church and without reference or recourse to god, or what the churched think of as god.
Wolf Rosary was written for a friend who was recently diagnosed as Bipolar—a Manic Depressive. The metaphor she and her husband use to refer to Bipolar Disorder is Lycanthropy—she is a lycanthrope, a werewolf. Since I have survived to my jubilee year (49) with full blown Manic Depression (and without diagnosis or treatment until age 37), I feel a bit like a hoary old village elder to all the bipolar lycanthropes round about. Want to see my teeth? I still got 'em.
Note: Mrs. Dr. Omed LOLed when she read this, so it's good enuf for you lot.
Most of the images you see of the Venus of Willendorf make the figure look massive, almost threatening with psychic weight. The real thing is something you can hold in your hand, a bit under five inches in height. Since she has, literally, no feet to stand on, perhaps she was meant to be held in the hand. She is very old, as human representative artifacts go, maybe 24,000 years old, found in 1908 in Austria. She was carved of oolitic limestone not native to the place where she was found, and tinted with red ochre. Some have suggested that she was carved from the perspective of a woman looking down at her own body.
Last night the government of North Korea proclaimed to the world that it had conducted a nuclear test. We're working to confirm North Korea's claim. Nonetheless, such a claim itself constitutes a threat to international peace and security. The United States condemns this provocative act. Once again North Korea has defied the will of the international community, and the international community will respond.(VIA NPR)
DIRECT FROM HIS WINDOWLESS CUBICLE IN HELL, DR. OMED RIFFS ON
Provocative Act
It’s an extremely provocative act.
It is a mad provocative act by a government which has lost all restraint.
It is hard to think of a more provocative act than this.
It is an unfortunate, provocative act that we cannot in any way encourage.
It was a provocative act that does not serve the cause of peace.
It is inconceivable that such a provocative act could have been undertaken.
It is the most dangerous and provocative act of folly.
it is quite appropriate to condemn this provocative and dangerous act.
It's very appropriate for countries to put sanctions on
to punish the provocative act.
We cannot say we cannot do anything.
We think it is a provocative act.
We view this as a deliberately provocative act.
We say North Korea did a provocative and unwise act.
We have here, then, a provocative and irresponsible act.
We point out, and object to, the oppressive and deliberately provocative act.
We stand next to you condemning the cowardly provocative act.
We strongly condemn any kind of provocative act, from whatever source.
We severely condemn this provocative act.
We lodge a strong protest to condemn this provocative act.
We condemn this provocative act and urge that it not be repeated.
We are truly facing a provocative act.
We cannot say we cannot do anything.
Our message is that this is a very provocative act.
You could hardly have had a more provocative act.
This provocative act violates a standing moratorium on provocative acts.
Washington warned it would be seen as a provocative act.
Britain said it would view any nuclear test as a highly provocative act.
We are consulting with international partners such as Russia and China
on the next steps uniting the world’s united opposition
to this provocative act.
Expect an impotent act of international self-stultification.
Do you have a position on whether this would be a provocative act or not?
I find it hard to believe that calling a provocative act
Note: It's somewhat disquieting at times to watch and listen to oneself on the viddy. All the tics, fumbles, mumbles, and mispronounciations are there in not quite living color and 'puter speaker sound for me to see and hear. It's instructive, for the same reason. I'm not quite satisfied with the reading I gave, but it wasn't too bad, and I wanted the florescent-lit ambience of my workplace, the aforsaid windowless cubicle in Hell.
