wanna see a magic trick?

[twelveoone]

(It's OK I have permission for this)

Little Joey reflects on life
Every night I goes out walkin
ina Thomas Kinkaid paradise

I gets homesickness
for a homicide
a full blown out shoot out
with AK-47s
head under
whistling lead full skies

now the closes' I gets to danger
's the warnin labels
of cigarettes
'n' liquor
Shi-it
I ain't pregnant

God I miss
classy Bambi
dose giant gor-gious doe eyes.

Dey says
sey'd get me a job
asa pharmist's aide

da Witness protection plan
wont be that bad
'n' 's bedder than life
widout parole


This is not a great poem. Maybe not even a good poem. It doesn't even appear to be a poem.
The question is: if I where to see this over in New Poems, what would I give it? An overgenerous 100, 75 or a dread 50 because it annoyed the hell out of me.

First the title:

Little Joey reflects on life

Drips of that "human condition" (read titilation or emotional voyuearism) that LeBroz was fond of, sounds portentious, possibly laced with sickly sentiment. My stomach is getting prepared.

Every night I goes out walkin
ina Thomas Kinkaid paradise

My stomach starts to roll. But the "goes", "walkin" and "ina" may function as an audience cue, that something is up.
<Surprise>

I gets homesickness
for a homicide

OK, great, where is going? A pycho zombie expedition from a Comac McCarthy wannabee?
We also have a minor surprise with the parrellism and alliteration of "homesickess" and "homicide".

Amoung the local colour these line bears some interest:

head under
whistling lead full skies

"head" can either function as a noun or a verb; note the g on whistling, a slip outside the venacular, why? "Lead full skies" looks like s double inversion, "leaden skies" is rather old and tired, and without paying attention one almost hears "dreadful" and yet the mood is exhurberant. At this point I question "whistling" again. It is not firmly linked, it appears it is to "lead", my guess it would be "skies" a less likely possibility, it was him ("head"). The use of head to represent a whole human is what in poetic parlance is know as "syndoche", I think. Perhaps he is useing that word in all three functions, that would be a Nice!

So far the authour is not asking for us to supply much according to 10/90 Senna Jawa dictum, but he does a curious thing thinking about Bambi after the pregnancy warning on the liquor bottle. Inviting us to fill in the 90% of the personal details, somehow I doubt it. A gunman having a girlfriend named Bambi can range from absurdly stupid to an absurd nice little touch, a problem of placement maybe the placement after the shoot-out would have been too much, too soon. It is also possible that the authour uses the word "dose" here as a prelude to getting a job in a pharmacy. This is what is known in poetic parlance as "subtle".

dose giant gor-gious doe eyes.

I don't know what he is doing here, nice alliteration, but "gor-gious", maybe a lingo thing. I'm told "doe eyes" was a mascara thing circa the early 60's.

So what to do? 100, 75 or 50? Contrary to what some nasty little fucker would had you believe, I don't often go below 50, and I hand those out like lead.


OK. sticking a mob rat in a Thomas Kinkaid setting is fucking genius, about on a par with better basic cable. And it is funny, about as funny as Larry the cable guy or listening to Joe Pesci talk.

But the authour supplies everything, so it is more 90/10 thereforth it is not poetry. But asking the reader to supply the 90% to arrive at some bitter little kernal can be annoying. If I wanted to read that, I'd write about my own "human condition". Fuck that.

Here is the real plus for this: Little Joey does reflect on life, and you have to wade though a few surprises to find that the "life" is not the life you thought of, but a sentence. Hiding in plain sight.

Here is the real negative: Wading though all those apostophes and cheap goombah talk, I suppose in poetic parlance that would be known as "voice", but it is so goddamn annoying.


Makes me almost sorry I put them in.

 

[bogusagain]

The poem rather reminds me of this one from the 60s or 70s, it was one of a series of poems about Little Johnny.


Little Johnny's confession

THIS MORNING
...................being rather young and foolish
.........I borrowed a machinegun my father
.........had left hidden since the war, went out,
.........and eliminated a number of small enemies.
.........Since then I have not returned home.

This morning
.......swarms of police with tackerdogs
.......wander about the city
.......with my description printed
.......on their minds, asking:
.......'Have you seen him ?
.......He is seven years old.
.......likes Pluto, Mighty Mouse
.......and Biffo the Bear,
.......have you seen him, anywhere?'

This morning
.......sitting alone in a strange playground
.......muttering you've blundered, you've blundered
.......over and over to myself
.......I work out my next move
.......but cannot move.
.......The trackerdogs will sniff me out,
.......they have my lollypops.

-Brian Patten


However, I'm not sure why you seem to think a poem should reflect on life, we don't make the same demands of music, painting or drama etc. They might well reflect on life or they might not. Some are just designed to entertain, induce a snigger or some other surface response. How can we possibly know what will last in the long run? The best war poetry in 1918 is not seen as the best war poetry of today. Nowadays it seems we have a rather puritan view of the arts. They have to be serious, meaningful, economical etc. Though really, current good poetry (art/drama etc) is nothing more than established good taste. I'd give a high mark for someone writing a poem that is knowingly the antithesis of currently established good taste because they are challenging the status quo which is never a bad thing in my book. When you think about it, we live in a 'civilised society' that sanctions violence, as long as we can define it with a euphemism. That's what good taste amounts to.

 

[Liar]

What was the magic trick?

 

[twelveoone]

What was the magic trick?

misdirection

 

[twelveoone]

However, I'm not sure why you seem to think a poem should reflect on life, we don't make the same demands of music, painting or drama etc. They might well reflect on life or they might not. Some are just designed to entertain, induce a snigger or some other surface response. How can we possibly know what will last in the long run? The best war poetry in 1918 is not seen as the best war poetry of today. Nowadays it seems we have a rather puritan view of the arts. They have to be serious, meaningful, economical etc. Though really, current good poetry (art/drama etc) is nothing more than established good taste. I'd give a high mark for someone writing a poem that is knowingly the antithesis of currently established good taste because they are challenging the status quo which is never a bad thing in my book. When you think about it, we live in a 'civilised society' that sanctions violence, as long as we can define it with a euphemism. That's what good taste amounts to.

I seem to think?

 

[bogusagain]

I seem to think?

Sorry 1201. I didn't mean to insult you by suggesting you might think.

 

[twelveoone]

Sorry 1201. I didn't mean to insult you by suggesting you might think.

apology neglected

 

[Liar]

misdirection

That's not actually magic, you know.

 

[annaswirls]

dumb question: who wrote this? I googled some of the lines but only found this


Remember when someone submitted a Pablo Nerudo poem? I often wondered what score people gave it before we asked Laurel to remove it. I was reviewing that day and like a fool did not recognize the poem. At least I gave it a good review. TaraBlackwood pmmed me with a pssst that is Nerudo!!!