Manic Ode to the November in my Soul
in a time of global warming
Phonemes
whicker in the convolute meat
under my skullcap.
The chilled Stonehenge quivers
a mold of raspberry jello
sympathetic to a foreshortened aubade.
Druid starlings
peck the engrams
out of the pink fat frozen in rime.
Blue horses corralled
in this dance of giants
whiny and stamp, fog gallops in aspic…
Thus, a lithium chorus
decomposes meaning
in my winterized brain,
the stone cold ball of mercury
wherein the crone scries
the absolute zero of temperature and time.
Dana Pattillo
Note: The phrase “November in my soul” is taken from the opening of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick:
“Call me Ishmael. Some years ago – never mind how long precisely – having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off – then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.”
