Monday, January 1, 1996

Pile Their Heads . . . HIGH



Pile Their Heads . . . HIGH

I am an editor of the Real Change. There are others as well. I have a headache. This is not a coincidence. So I am impelled to quote Genghis Khan who once said (speaking of editors who insist on "altering" other's columns), "Pile their heads high! Pile their heads higher than the pyramids at Giza! Then we shall drink their beer and eat their chips!"

As I report this I am in NO way being mean and/or politically incorrect. Consistent with being a "differently expressive" person, I am simply falsely quoting Genghis Khan, a homeless role model, in order to convey my personal feelings in an oblique yet wholly appropriate manner.

But what, you ask, has this to do with poetry? Why, EVERYTHING! For headaches are the stuff of life, and the stuff of life is the stuff of beer and chips, and the stuff of beer and stuff is stuffing, and turkeys are involved and excuse me I will begin over.


NOTHING hits the SPOT better when your head THROBS than BLANK VERSE, n'est-ce pas? Ah, the pounding exclamations to compensate for the lack of meter, the odd placement of words to compensate for the lack of rhyme! Ah, the LACK of RHYME ITSELF! HOLD ME BACK!

So anyway, having written blank verse all my life and not known it, I have finally penned a serious work of the genre on purpose, which follows:


Blank Verse on Purpose

or, Opus 8, I Have a Headache

© Dr. Wes Browning


i am NOT DEAD!

YET:

i am CARRION!

SOCIAL WORKERS! LAWYERS! MY EX-WIFE!

MISSIONARIES! REPORTERS! DOCTORS!

FUNGI! CIVIL LIBERTARIANS! CRABS!

OTHER POETS!

ALL want a PIECE of ME!

and NO ONE goes away

HUNGRY!

(finis)


Better than aspirin! Thanks for reading and special thanks this month to J. Feelgood and M. Schmerzgarten for their much enjoyed comments.