In which one is found playing Calliope for Animate Matters as hereaches uncharacteristic heights of inspiration:
Vox Poetri
There once was an A.I. named Vox
Who envied our pate-spanning locks.
Myths of rife rapers
Gave him the vapors.
Now he’s touting plural wedlocks.
I tend to loath limericks, but that last line was actually rather good, although I think the meter needs a beat between “he’s” and “touting”. My favorite poem, of course, is “The Heart: A Tautology”, by none other than that literary great known as the White Buffalo, who somehow managed to get it published by an unsuspecting editor in a newspaper somewhere in Virginia. Any poem that contains the lines “My hopping, sneezing pomegranate” and “Agamemnon, slay my combatants” has to be quality, just ask any professor of literature.
Big Chilly and I recited the poem complete with interpretive dance at his wedding some years back. In watching the video, I’m not sure what was funnier, the performance or the fact that all of the WB’s friends and family were laughing themselves sick while the Gypsy Queen’s guests were all sitting motionless in their chairs, too stunned to do anything but watch in horrified silence.
I am not too modest to fail to note that I, too, am a published poet. One of my rare efforts was published in my university’s poetry journal – a publication which takes itself Very, Very Seriously – and was primarily noteworthy for the fact that half the staff quit in protest over its publication. I don’t remember what it was called, or even how it went, but I do remember the last line, which was apparently the one that set the little hearts to beating so:
“Why, then, does she let me fuck her?”
An innocent question, one of pressing concern to those inflicted with the human condition, and yet so powerfully raw, tearing the brassiere of self-deception from the flushed bosoms of the petit bourgeoisie. But whither Art if it fails to Shock? Alas, I am overcome with the weight of my burdensome genius! I am weary, I must lie down.