ADHESIONS
I am 65 years old and I am sitting in
an apartment with a table, office chair,
and bed, not to mention the dresser of deal,
and I'm trying to write again
after years of demeanment and abuse,
of gall and of heartburn Tums could not cure,
of shellshock from the terrorist attacks.
They may be over, but this too is a place of
terror, filled with IEDs and artillery poundings.
The isle is not full of noises: it is full of Lady GaGa
blasting away through my speakers.
I am the mental traveler who grows younger every day,
an immature old fart listening to music
sung by a girl who could be my granddaughter
except I'm not Italian, have no grandkids,
and no kid of mine became a Catholic high school opt-out.
I am trying to write again and I am
using kanji with a snot-dipped brush,
it's my invisible ink, you might say (or not),
you can't see it when it dries but I know it's there,
it glitzes like a ham glaze but it's twice as kosher,
and I'm grateful to still have juices in my body,
but I also know too much about the past
not to know that GaGa is a partial retread
who's channeling disco because the drummer
never left the club even back in 1983
when the 'ludes and coke ran out.
I am trying to write again and I am
clearly out of my mind.
Robert Lowell said his mind wasn't right, either.
He didn't need to do pirate downloads
of Lady GaGa to get there, but he'd probably
have tried something unseemly if he'd met her.
I wonder what Lowell really did for musical
entertainment. Not Lady GaGa. Maybe swing bands? Helen Morgan?
Groucho singing "Whatever It Is, I'm Against It"?
After five weeks of silence I feel much more like Harpo,
doofus-looking, willed inarticulate not because the act gets laughs
but because talking has become too much trouble.
KTW/2-10-10
|