Today—illness is upon me, which naturally made me think of POETRY! I am an admirer of the bardic arts, but I have a special place in my black-hole of a heart for the Dadaists—serial abusers of sound and meaning, whose experiments always amuse me. To help combat my sublime discomfort (head swirling gunkiness and all) I have composed the following piece, which I am calling…
“DADA Inspired Poetry (From a Crusty Berzerker)”
The hobbyhorse has been resurrected
As a conversation, a hallucination
(With the words hidden in space)
But the ink-blot revolution
Will certainly be televised
Though panned by the critics
Its sponsors enraged (like a tick in a freezer)
(a fish in lipstick drag)
(a penguin on the wing—breaking down—black box drowned)
While the Beasts sing
“Cooo ca Loooo!”
“Cooo ca Laaay!”
Olives on toothpicks
Marching boldly across the tundra
A hick-up, a blink, a social blindness
Non-combustible linen for president!
Flee in the Spring while the dolphins still swing
From tree to shining tree!
And the loose-leaf revolution
Is now being televised
Though hidden beneath the commercial waves
The bridge collapsed
(One week before retirement)
And the butterflies were blamed
Though they were once blessed by Hoofnard
The Good and Quite Tidy
Who wanders, alone, for all who are lost
While the Beasts still sing
“Cooo ca Loooose!”
“Cooo ca Laaazy!”
And the floating ducks were like the Devil!
They’d reserved the best seats
Watching, with glee, as the trenches filled with bodies
The targets of blind archers
Dipped in the soft pool and thus contagious
Anti-Achilles, pervious to all things—even smoke and mirrors
“But THE INVADERS!
THE INVADERS!”
(They come from within…)
With their haunted shoes
And bullets like teeth
And strange thin fingers like grasping twigs
Hide in a cave!
(With the wi-fi and jellied toast)
The black cave of doom…
And the click-click revolution
Had already been televised
But we’d missed it in the swim of white noise and static
The network was undone
All dreams canceled
Calgon—the great warrior—took them away…
And the cartoonists
Became blind prophets
Whose lanterns of truth had fallen silent
Bubbles of thought (visible above a few swollen heads)
Popped by cursed fingers
Holding pleasing needles
Pennies on eyes
And plastic speakers in ears
They float casually across the wrong river
And I rolled the dice
Too frightened of snake-eyes to dare to peek!
“It was BLUE!” they screamed, “And so, UNREAL!”
And the Beasts still sing
“Cooo ca Looo!”
“Cooo ca Laaay!”
So I refused to be honest ever again…
—Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool)
The “process” of writing…
[P.S. – I have had poetry (and poetry like scribbling) published in a number of different venues, including Vision? Nary! Magazine, Clockwise Cat, Words-Myth, The Salmon Creek Journal, The Salal Review, Counterexample Poetics, Word Riot, Yankee Pot Roast, Mad Swirl, and the Lower Columbia College Trident. Also possibly of interest, I DO have a book of poetry available for purchase—if you’re one of those types of people who BUYS poetry—called Night Noises… (Available in paperback or digital forms.) In addition, I have a weird book—kind of a combination Art Manifesto / Science-Fiction Farce / and Poetic Screed, that you might want to check out, if you like really weird things, called Primitive Conjurations – Lies for Art and Living… (Also available in paperback or digital editions!) Many words to choose from, but CHOOSE WISELY…)]
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[This piece was first posted on my Steemit blog on 21 Dec. 2019!]
