2012/06/13

Well, If It's Permitted, Then Let's Regulate Him, Let's Testify Against His Thimble, and Moderate His Gloves Before They Sew an Apron




Throw your spare coins. Yes, serendipitously, this speaks to my hard-wired need of uniforms and consequent zealous evangelizing in mission to said uniform. Shit, I get freaking weepy at professional-grade emotional blackmail by said uniform, every manipulative camera shot, every dynamic of the bed music exactly as you expect it to be, building, faster, slower, faster, faster, till a thrilling orgasm of schmaltz.





Still, WFMU plays great music and makes me happy, so give. Did you notice how yesterday's poem serendipitously evokes this blog's Theme Song 3?












A VAGABOND

James Tate

A vagabond is a newcomer
in a heap of trouble.
He’s an eyeball at a peephole
that should be electrocuted.
He’s a leper in a textile mill
and likely to be beheaded, I mean,
given a liverwurst sandwich
on the break by the brook
where the loaves are sliced.
But he oughtn’t meddle
with the powder puffs on the golf links—
they have their own goats to tame,
dirigibles to situate.
He can act like an imbecile
if the climate is propitious,
a magnate of kidnap
paradising around the oily depot,
or a speck from a distant nebula
wishing to purchase a certain skyscraper ....

Well, if it’s permitted, then
let’s regulate him, let’s testify
against his thimble, and moderate his gloves
before they sew an apron.

The local minister is thinking
of moving to Holland, exchanging
his old ballads for some lingerie.
“Zatso!” says the vagabond.
Homeless, like wheat that tattletales
on the sermon, like wages swigged.
“Zatso, zatso, zatso!” cries the vagabond.
The minister reels under the weight
of his thumbs, the vagabond seems to have
jutted into his kernel, disturbed
his terminal core. Slowly, and with
trifling dignity, the minister removes
from his lapel his last campaign button:
Don’t Mess with Raymond, New Hampshire.