Joseph Duemer wrote:
> I walk 47 miles of barbed wire,
> I use a cobra-snake for a necktie,
> I got a brand new house on the roadside,
> Made from rattlesnake hide,
> I got a brand new chimney made on top,
> Made out of a human skull,
> Now come on take a walk with me, arlene,
> And tell me, who do you love?
>
> I used that as an epigraph to my poem "Superstition" --Magical
> Thinking<http://www.amazon.com/Magical-Thinking-Poems-Joseph-Duemer/dp/0814250874/ref=sr_1_5/105-2115151-2458852?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188692138&sr=8-5>(Ohio
> St. University Press 2001). I remember hearing the song in the 1960s &
> falling inside that repeated question: Who do you love? Who do you love?
> It's both a plea & a challenge. It is a moral fucking imperative if there
> ever was one.
>
> j
The right words. Fucking. Moral. Imperative. In February 2001 the
title struck me as representing the gateway to the Hell of human
relationships. It was outright threat and intimidation. Give me
yourself or I will destroy you. Give me yourself and we will destroy
one another. There may be good sport along the way but neither of us
can win because this is not a game. Handy-dandy. Because we need the
eggs. Now take off your goddamned dress.
KW
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Ken Wolman rainermaria.typepad.com
We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good
We'll do the best we know.
We'll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow...
Bernstein/Wilbur, "Candide"
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