Monday, November 01, 2010

COLD MEDICINE POETRY

It's that time of year again! The time of year when I get bronchitis and take a massive dose of mind-altering cough syrup and lie down on my couch and think about the state of modern poetry! This usually results in a poem about poetry itself, called either "POETRY TODAY OH MY GOD" or "A POEM ABOUT POETRY I AM SO HIGH RIGHT NOW."


POETRY TODAY OH MY GOD

Heidegger lies down on the rose-colored sofa. His snatch is bleeding so bad he can hardly concentrate on philosophy. Still he persists, like a strawberry in the snow, dreaming about the fingertips that are reaching down for him.

Somewhere in Germany, a hart lowers his head to drink and sees the water wet with all of his self-contained blood—that is to say, his reflection. “There is the hart that killed my mother,” he thinks, “the hart that broke my mother in two.”

If there are too many harts in poetry today, it is because we all grew up reading a book called “Imogene's Antlers,” about a girl who woke one morning with a pair—and this will surprise you—of antlers.

If there is too much blood in poetry today, it is because we all imagined the day when Imogene got her period, and how she was now in even greater danger from the wolves.

The “woofs,” as we called them.

If there are too many woofs in poetry today, it is because in our childhood books, they were always a danger to the youngest, pinkest characters. And we were even younger and pinker than them.

Heidegger never read the story of Imogene. He would like to read it now, bleeding on his rose-colored couch. It would comfort him to think that perhaps his head is heavy because his head is growing upward.

If there are too many dead philosophers in poetry today, it is because we know that even in heaven they haven't stopped reading. They will get around to our poems after many eternities, and devour them like more-than-carnivores.

THE END

10 comments:

ron hardy said...

For some reason I began to think about the Hartford Insurance Company and the stag. It never occurred to me that the stag was buried in the company name. And then I began to wonder about health insurance and what kind of coverage Heidegger could get today for an upward growing head. And I like the pigs in the poem. There they are. And it reminded me how I could never duplicate the color of my skin with crayons. I just like the poem a lot, Tricia. Yep. Get better.

Patricia Lockwood said...

Thank you, my Ron--pigs are my calling card, as you know

Sandy Longhorn said...

Tricia, love this. The whole thing. Women-girls in danger from the wolves...and dead philosophers of course.

Patricia Lockwood said...

Thank you Sandy! Not sure why I chose Heidegger, I think his name just seemed funniest to me at the time

Radish King said...

the harts in the cooling stream ha i remember that song. now it's in my brain an earwurm.

Patricia Lockwood said...

Hymns are the worst earwurms for some reason, them and the Gummi Bears theme song

John Dantzer said...

Wow, this is great. I always suspected of Heidegger having a vagina.

Patricia Lockwood said...

Drugs showed me the truth, jorg wobblington lopez

Christine E. Hamm, Poet Professor Painter said...

I love this poem so much I would marry it if I weren't otherwise engaged.

Patricia Lockwood said...

I support your right to marry figments of my imagination, Christine--I also support polygamy