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Utopian Turtletop. Monsieur Croche's Bête Noire. Contact: turtletop [at] hotmail [dot] com

Wednesday, April 02, 2008



Here is a poem.
What shall I put in it?
A minutely observed datum of daily experience is always nice.
Especially when it opens allegorically into an epiphany,
By which I mean, a revelatory new understanding of something,
Not an appearance of the god.
Although it is nice to imagine worshiping the shock of an unexpected and fresh understanding.
I think this will be a self-reflexive poem
I think it already is!
The self-reflexiveness feels cutesy to me, but even though I’m already 39 years old
(how time flies!)
Sometimes I still feel cutesy.
No doubt many potential readers will find this boring or self-indulgent or both.
I wish that weren’t the case but I don’t feel like apologizing.
I’m not really 39. That’s a dumb allusion to a dated joke of Jack Benny’s. I’m 44.
Unless you know me, you’ll have to take my “word” on that.
I’m typing this poem on a computer. Its settings have decided to
Capitalize initial words
(except when they occur within parentheses),
Not that the computer has a choice in the matter, but that’s how i
Frequently experience it.
For instance, I expected it to auto-capitalize the English first-person pronoun, but
For some reason it didn’t once. I
Will keep it in the poem that way.
For a time it was fashionable to include partial erasures in poems,
To show the crossed-out lines that the poet wrote, then reconsidered, then
Decided to keep as a partially erased line – or word – by showing it
With a line through it – not erased, but crossed-out.
I know how to do this longhand, obviously, and on a typewriter too,
But I haven’t bothered to learn the computer program – hah! I mistyped the word “poem” instead of “program”! how funny! And then went back and fixed it – I haven’t learned the computer program to cross words out and leave them standing, to put it in this
Poem.
I just – no I didn’t, never mind.
I see that the computer failed to initially capitalize one line.
Oh, it was a wrap-around.
My friend Bob is playing drums in a bar tonight. He’s
In my band and in this other band that I haven’t heard, but
I plan to tonight. After my son goes to bed, I will get in the car and drive across
Town to have a beer and listen to Bob’s band. Afterwards I
Will go to the record store to see if Mark is there – he’s a drummer too, and
I’m hoping he’ll be in my other band, not the one with Bob, though Bob will
Be in the other band too. after looking for Mark I will go grocery shopping
And go home to clean the kitchen and put away laundry, probably
Post this poem on my blog, and write some emails. Maybe I will revise
This poem, since I have already, making it seem an off-the-cuff improvisation,
Which it still would be, in part. My son
Will be asleep and I will kiss him. My wife will be awake and probably reading; she will ask me how
The band was. Although if she’s doing something on the computer I might not post this until
Tomorrow.
We’ll see.






-- Sumerian scribe lifted from Missouri State





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