August 08, 2006

In the Poetry Corner

Long before the end of summer, she was told to read
before posting requests and announcements.
That was before a gypsy's love song cast its spell.
Now, a letter a day is her addiction,
and she finds herself alone, as morbid as they come,
assembling the pineapple with black ink.
She composes her chapbook: signings, symbols, codes--
much like those dead Christian gnostics. Chop. Chop.
Deep thinking is a depression, a hole, an emotional well,
but there must be 20 times 20 ways to keep from falling
in love with fantasy. Medieval, the way she chants
for your love. The forty-plus crowd ignore her nonsense;
they miss her graduations, her wedding, her haiku:
I hate you/idiots. In the beginning, there are insanities
and kindred spirits: Life, Love, Death and Suicide.
Life, Death and Lost Love woo her with midnight whispers.
Teen nature--now, this is not odd. Lured by contests
and awards, the woman-child doesn't know she should
avoid the spider's web and social commentary
from the over-30 crowd whose hormones have withered.
Really rotten rhyme and silver dreams adorn her.
She seeks sisters and sonnets, only sonnets, straight
from the heart. No one needs tell her: submissions wanted.
She's a swan. Lake be damned. She braves the ocean,
and symbolic rhyming poets like Hannah and Dan show
her the light. Brigades of little fish join her in the quilting
circle. When at last it's time for change, she says goodbye
to best friends, to true love, to war against the well-versed
ladies. She discovers it does not matter what inspires you.
She won't write: Why do I love you? You, only you, Zeitgeist.

9 comments:

Agnes said...

Cherie,

Masturbation with a beat?

Richard Epstein said...

A tribute to the AOL Poetry Corner folders? What prompted that?

Anonymous said...

Umm....that's a master beater?

Agnes said...

Richard,

I don't know. It's an old one. I like it, and I thought I'd share.

Richard Epstein said...

I miss some of the people there some of the time, but thinking about how long we were willing to tolerate the evil and the witless and gormless and the clueless posters there who made it their habitual resort on rainy nights when there was nowhere else to sleep....

Agnes said...

Dang it, Richard. Now I must go buy me some gorm. Think Walmart carries it?


::smooch::

mareymercy said...

There's too much here for me to pull out bits that I like and re-post them. Guess I'll just say I like the whole damn thing. Even though I'm over 30, and my hormones have yet to wither.

Anonymous said...

addiction and zeitgeist commingled...you're a hippie chick right? All como sey dice, etay, no Castillian memory...right

Kudos that Assembling the Pineapple leads to the hear gnad now. Imagine, we used to call it poetry and now they call it blogging...ah well that's what Terms Of Service gets ya...a facscimile...ahhhhh, let me put this all Cleaneth:

Bukowski is great and Ferlinghetti before him...ever seen them live? Stone ass stupid darlin. And now what? All the good fights are over other than who rocks the Pineapple Karaoke mike best! Mine is bets on Exiles on Main Street or "Reply to Hayne" by Webster" but that she-it can't compare, hmmmmmmmmm

Anonymous said...

Woah, nostalgia alert. I don't suppose there's any chance anyone is actually reading the comments on this now more than 8 year old post, but I'm pretty sure I'm the "Dan" mentioned in this poem. At least, Hannah and I used to post a lot together. Hope all is well with you.