Cut and Waste

by © Dr. Wendy Browning

Obsessed with cut and paste techniques, my plan this month was to assemble a poem from alternating lines of prose by Henry Miller and James Joyce. Unfortunately, these two guys almost never make sense together. See for yourself:

If the sewer mains were open you held your nose

-Fretted forlorn, dreamily rose.

Round and round one walks seeking the hub

-Best value in Dub.

So instead we'll talk about pro hygiene center signs. It seems that "no hygiene center" signs are appearing at some businesses downtown and we at the Real Change want to encourage everyone to counter with their own hygiene center signs. In order to help people along with this, I have been asked by the management to offer some samples.

Here are some of my first efforts.

Hygiene - An Idea whose time has come!

A clean street person is an invisible street person.

Help give Seattle's homeless the scrubbing they deserve!

Would a bum by any other name
smell the same?
Not with hygiene centers!

At this point I felt something was missing and sought consultation. My good friend Andy was unavailable, recovering from an operation. So I turned to Tim Harris, who advised, "More pith! Make them rhyme!" So pith it is.

A dirty bum is disgusting to see

With hygiene centers they needn't be.

A hygiene center down the block

Means clean shiny bums `round the clock.

Let the homeless have showers, So they'll all smell like flowers!

Say yes to hygiene centers

they're absolutely right

The homeless need soap and water

to make themselves look bright.

It would be so keen

if the homeless were clean

so please don't be mean

support centers of hygiene.

Finally, an artistic contribution:

Hygiene Haiku, or Opus 19,

My Second Haiku with Content

Morning, a clean bum.

All around hygiene centers -

Cherry blossom time.

My Rosy Man, Or Willy

My Beat Period came and went last month, and now I'm in the throes of an identity crisis. What poet am I? What is my purpose in poetrydom? I need to answer these and other questions similar to these. Meanwhile I can say this much:

I am Assorted Snacks or

Opus 17, Assorted Snacks, I am, I am.

Am I a raven? No ! I'm three. One won't do.

I'm not THAT coyote but this. See the eyes? Blue.

This stream won't be me `til it gets over there-

THERE where it tumbles down that mossy rock

in the shade of THAT log,

THAT one, shaped like my readiest cock.

But wait! No! That can't be me!

There are no STORES around! I must be assorted snacks!

(or at least I must BE where they are able to be found.)

Yes, I think we can all safely agree, I am a composite of edible food stuffs. But this begs the original question: What poet am I? As I discuss the matter this dark morning with my good friend Cindy, she says, "well, let's see. You're a guy. And you've been homeless. What don't you do homeless-guy-poetry? That's what I would do. I mean, you know, if I were a guy. And all that."

So I scope out some Robert Bly and assimilate a bit. I persuade myself, medicinally, that I CAN drum the Archetypal Beat in Sync with the Primordial Guy. And then, and only then, do I let the one-eyed bear between my legs speak:

My Rosy Man, Willy

or Opus 18, Willy, My Rosy Man

I sat by the dumpster, reading,

yesterday's Times in my lap, upon my wildness

She walked past-whom I could have loved

for ten years-walked by, and was gone.

The stray dog paws through the plastic bag

twirling the french fry in his mouth.

How fresh the fries are, the boon of the Burger King.

A light breeze dispels the stench.

I know the woman had fur.

As a horse swings his head,

how easily do my thoughts follow.

This alley covered with stones shelters bones.

That was it, damnit! When I returned

to the Porta-Potty, I was not alone.

My rosy man (or:Willy)

reached on his own and touched my hand.

My, that was moving, wasn't it? Thank you Mr. Bly for that inspiration, and thank you as always Cindy, my Muse, you of the thin straight lips and matching mind. And thanks to my Readers who, reading next month, may learn more about writing "collagesque"!

The Goddess Dances In, Within

Baby Bop,

Burning Bright

Let's begin with an adventure in prose by Steve Mansour that demonstrates that I am not alone. That's right - there are others who share my artistic sensibilities. Steve is, by the way, an artist/writer who sometimes works at the Street Life Gallery at 2nd and Bell, and not an imaginary person I invented in an effort to fill space. If he had been an imaginary person on this occasion his name would have been Cindy.

Steve writes, "... for me, a true artist thinks and draws, draws and thinks; a true artist thinks and draws, then draws some more and thinks, and draws, and then he thinks some more. A true artist dreams, then draws, then dreams again, and draws, then he/she thinks and again draws, and dreams, and dreams of drawing and draws the dreaming, and thinks less." Can you dig it? I can!

Speaking of digging, I was just talking to my good friend Cindy about the huge blank space at the bottom of this page and she said to me, "You know what you should do? You should write something there. That's what I would do. Then you should lie down, © Dr., `cause you're really looking beat." Just then I thought and dreamed and dreamed the thinking and thought yeah! I am going to have my Beat period. My main influences this morning - now that the bars have closed - will be Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Krebs. Yeah. It's coming to me I'm feeling the beat it's crazy man it's everywhere it's in everything DIG it - dig IT - don't let the Bomb get you down let the Beat do it. Yeah. IT.

I'm outta tea. I send Cindy to the store for more. She comes back. I'm ready:

Sixteenth Hymmnn

to/of the Dumbsainted

or Opus 16, My First Beat Poem

Hey Jack!

I AM a Character in the Bleak

inhuman Loneliness

As I sing the intergalactic song of a

species couchless

Yeah: no couch for me tonight

Pad me on a pad - no hipster pad -

The hipsters pad in their cells tonight -

While I pad the streets of my share

of inhuman loneliness

With: Cindy / she-who-is-not-real

And while I pad this poem of bleak couchlessness

With the aid of: Cindy / she-who-is

Jack: I AM a Genius all the time

As long as Cindy blows through and out my mind.

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.

A Lyric Playlet

A Lyric Playlet in One Scene

or Opus 15, My First Contribution to the Christmas Tradition.

Joseph (J.) (soon-to-be step-father of God) and his old lady Mary (M.), who is majorly preggers in every way, both in rags, approach a door. The words "Ye Last Chance Inn" appear above it. After a few knocks the Innkeeper (I.) appears and this conversation ensues.

J.: Innkeeper - please don't let us down -

We've tried every other inn in town!!

As you see my wife is miles around

And soon her Son'll drop to the ground!

I.: What, are you nuts? Haven't you yet been

Made aware that "there's no room at the inn"?

J.: But Sir, though, our taxes paid, now we are poor,

Couldn't you just let us crash `hind your door?

I.: I'd like to be kind but the rich folks have said

"Don't be lettin' no poor folks have a bed."

And the rich folks pay the bills - so it is -

You know we've got to look out after our biz.

M.: Oh - Ohhh - Ah - Ahhh - Oh - Ohhh - Ohhh - Ohhh!

Oh - Ohhh - Ah - Ahhh - Oh - Ohhh - Ohhh - Ohhh!

High-pitched Voice from Mary's Stomach:

Oh let me be born in a warm room Sir!

I won't even mind if it's only a manGER!

J.: Oh no! My wife Mary is about to give birth

to a most important Baby for all planet Earth!

I'll ask one more time, for whatever it's worth

Can you give me, her, and your God a berth?

Else we'll be homeless all the night long

And to do that to God would surely be wrong.

I.: You're "homeless"? Why didn't you say so before?

I had presumed you just disgustingly poor!

Our company policy says there are enough

Grounds for me to offer you free stuff.

So what'll it be: T-shirts, chips, fuzzy dice?

Travel mugs, baseball caps, boxes of instant rice?

Ash trays, fanny packs, hand-painted coasters?

No folks I'm sorry we don't carry toasters.

You want the chips? Here you go and from me

a couple of cigs.

Now both of you get jobs if you really

want good digs.

Offstage Voice:

And so it might have been if then were now.

They say times are better but I'm not sure how.

Finis

-Merry Christmas!- © Dr. Wes Browning

What Could Be Verse?

It has come to my attention, last month, that I have been "laid off" by my "employer." This is good news and bad news. The bad news: i.e., I've been screwed. The good news: as an Artiste, all of Life's Travails are but Grist for my Mill!:

I got Grist in My Teeth!

or Opus 13, My Life Stinks

© Dr. Wes Browning

I cannot contain my elation:

I have an unplanned vacation!

Sure, my life stinks

(And bosses are dinks)

But: due to the fact that I have worked my ass off for the past six years to

earn a living rather than take payment for that permanent mental disability I

am now gratefully fortunate (thanks largely to the Great Depression and its

attendant Administration - I love you Rosy! I really do! I will vote Democrat

forever, just because of you!) that I am going to be able to live like a

jolly starving dog for up to half a year by means of jolly unemployment

compensation.

Here's another easy way to write poems for all you poetry neophytes out there! Say you want to write a poem, but say you're drunk or hungover, or you're bummed out cause you lost your job, or say you're clinically stupid, or all three, or whatever. What should you do? Well, just what any lame artist would do: collage!

Let's see right now I want to write a poem about oh I don't know, oh hell, I'll just write one and see. So I grab my copy of "All the Poems You Were Forced to Read in School So Now You Hate Them and All That They Represent" (by Dead White Poets' Press) - or equivalent - and pick out 3 or 4 at random. Then I "cut'n paste and disregard the waste!" Maybe I kick in a scrap or two from memory and out she comes, another masterpiece!

Un Verset Collagesque

or Opus 14, What Could be Verse?

Copyright Dr. Wes Browning

The gingham dog and the calico cat

side by side on the table sat -

You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what's that?

It's nothing against you to fall down flat,

(The) Living shall forfeit fair renown,

and, doubly dying, shall go down

Then they'll do the hokey pokey

And turn themselves aroun'!

That what it's all about!

-Thanks to Eugene Field ("The Duel"), Edmund Vance Cooke ("How Did You Die"), Sir Walter Scott ("Love of Country"), and a scrap from memory. And thank you, poetry reader, for reading, and a special big thank you to The Fisch, Marion Sue, for her hot French pointers!

My First Sonnet

Since I have embarked on these Adventures a number of you have asked "Why?" A poet in the full grip of his Muse, when asked this least poetic of questions, might answer "Why not?" But as my Muse has stepped out for a smoke, I say "Why indeed?"

Is it boredom? A neurological imbalance? Poor nutrition? Revenge against high school English teachers?

Yes, it is.

Let's talk about the poet's craft! Occasionally, an admirer of my Art will ask "© Dr., where do you get your ideas?" and usually I answer "I steal them" or "go away" or "what ideas?" So instead of talking about where I get my ideas - let's talk about the poet's craft!

OK. Once you have a poetry idea you still need:

1) A vocabulary

2) A mold to put it in.

Such a mold is called a "form." Forms come in many forms. Today I'll consider the so-called "sonnet" form. As you'll see, I won't need to know what this means.

To illustrate what we've learned so far, let's "craft" a "sonnet" right now! We'll begin with the idea "sidewalks are hard".Then we'll take someone else's sonnet to be our mold. We'll then change the words - here's where the vocabulary comes in - until they express our idea instead of the other guy's. The sonnet I'll use is Shakespeare's #1 - which by the way being his first, was not one of his best.

And here's what we get!

My First Sonnet or Opus 10, We're Into Two Digits!

© Dr. Wes Browning

Of city benches we desire increase

That THERE our weary ends might ever lie.

Though as the benches may by time surcease

Our childish rears might share their memor-EYE.

But SIDEWALKS 'tached to thine own thick thighs

Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel*

Making a sore butt where fatness lies;

Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet ass too cruel.

As that art now your prize, best ornament

(Though - Hardly - Herald - To - The - Gaudy - Spring!)

Upon thy own butt forsaketh thy conTENT

Your tender tush made waste by your sitting.

Pity the world, for lest these benches stay

Our precious ends will end as puree.

(*: I didn't understand this line so I didn't change it.)

Isn't that great? Try it yourself! Start from this sonnet or any other poem, use your own "idea" and you'll have your own brilliant poem in minutes. Or wait until next month and I'll you an even easier way to write poems! Until then, happy poesing!