Those gilt taps…
—Anonymous Photo
—Anonymous Photo
THE ELEGANT POEM
(on reading Frederick Seidel)
—Neil Fullwood, Nottingham, England
The poem looks round my house, shakes its opening stanza
Sadly. It says
I need to reacquaint myself with the hoover,
Remind myself
What a chamois leather is for.
The poem amuses itself with some rhymes
For spit and polish,
Elbow grease.
I tell the poem to fuck off,
Adding—before it has chance to take umbrage—
That if it were as elegant
As it likes to pretend
It would have said “expectorate and polish”.
The poem has lived in London and Paris and holidayed
In Dubai
Where the gilt taps
In the hotel lobby men’s room
Could have paid off my mortgage and made my overdraft
A thing of the past.
And don’t get me started
On the poem’s taste in Ducati motorcycles
Or the address of its tailor
Or its cufflinks
Its smoking jacket
Its long thin cigarillos
And the man who comes twice a week to do its cleaning.
The poem has created itself in its own Anglophile image,
Pure Knightsbridge lifestyle porn.
We’ve had a referendum,
I remind the poem,
And some pretty ugly shit has come to the surface.
The poem professes an academic interest
While affecting disgust.
This is the poem’s modus operandi.
The poem wants to be a renaissance masterpiece
Painted over a dirty picture.
The poem wants to play the Mass in B-Minor
While fucking groupies
And doing arrow-straight lines of coke.
The poem
Wants to tear its clothes off in public
And wallow in the reaction.
The poem
Wants to rut in the mud like a frenzied thing.
The poem
Wants to make a statement to the arresting officer
Using a vocabulary
And a range of erudite references
Designed to belittle him.
The poem
Will accept that it “fell down some stairs”
With the same insouciant indifference.
The poem
Wants a crack at making something noble
And self-serving
Of six hours in a holding cell,
Or at the very least
Will use the time pleasantly to recall
The streets of Baghdad
And something it probably shouldn’t speak of.
The poem
Has committed vile acts but was always
Fashionably dressed.
It takes a last look round my house before it leaves
And uses its closing stanza
To criticise the curtains.
____________________
Top of the morning’ to ye on this, St. Patrick’s Day, and thanks, Neil Fullwood, for your elegant poem! Neil is one of our British SnakePals; he lives in Nottingham, England, but he assures me he is not the Sheriff of Nottingham… Check back into the Kitchen next Friday for more from Neil.
Poetry events in our area today include eco-poet Scott Edward Anderson (plus open mic) at Caffe Santoro in Diamond Springs, 1pm, and Mary Mackey (plus open mic) at Davis Arts Center on F St. in Davis. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about these and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.
—Medusa (Celebrate Poetry!)
For more about Frederick Seidel, go to www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/frederick-seidel/.
Did St. Patrick really drive the snakes out of Ireland? Click here and see: news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140315-saint-patricks-day-2014-snakes-ireland-nation/.
