|
|
 |
Contests : War Poetry Contest : Past Winners : 2009 : Frank Gaik
KID BOWDLER SINGS PHAECIA, PLAYED BY HOMEY
The first 100 lines of Book Nine of the Odyssey,
from the manuscript Homey; Or, Plying on Idiocy
Homey, up against it now
spilled all the beans:
"O AlkaSelzer, my main man,
Who can be blue? When hipsters
Roll their brassy syllables
The diners flirt & babble,
Plates pile sky-high,
And Mr. Money pays the tab?
Immeasurably cool!
Sirens go flashing
In my mirror mind
You ask me to truck
My weight of woes
To your table, top-off
Twice-told cups, pile
Grief mashed to a full plate
To stain the linen.
Never do I tell, I feel
And live it again. So listen.
Where to start? Getting
Screwed Royal, Athens to Zeus.
You helloed me a Nowhere man,
Now, fatted and feted, I tell you,
I am the great Odysseus, the son
Of Arts and Letters, who
In guest-shrift, promises you
When you must, a new home
In Catalithika, my own isle,
Home of the Homey.
Cattle is Ithaka's fame
Brighter than the sun
Lighting it daily
Ashimmer in op-art wild
Bolder than Mt. Doritos,
A post-card perennial.
Like our satellites,
Other isles face our east,
Archaen Archipelago,
Dulce, Soma, and ZacharyFarms,
Paving Apollo's path
To the high noon, from which
Haloes fall every night.
Our quota? Rugged sons,
Rocky, Kaiser, Kirk, or Thor,
Odysseus, Telemachus....
The very thought sweetens me now.
Trapped for a year with Calypso,
Chic-voodoo island lady,
Chapel-hungy: No, woman.
No. Cry. After Circe
Busted my chops 365.
O Homey, she said, stay no more,
Add no more salt to salt.
My heart, I said to her, roams
Separately from my docks,
And now it pulls me home,
A crew of eight, sans cox.
Like honey to Hypoglycemians
Will be my own front door &
The lips of my kin, a hunger
Foreign banquets never quench.
Thank you, anyway.
I bore you. So let me lay
The spinning tale of Big Daddy,
Notorious B.I.G., Doctor
Zeus of the Caduceus Clan,
The Jovial Jupiter, to get me home
From Troy a peace-loving man.
Without a Trojan, no one is safe.
Troy, now fizzing by fission
& fiction, after-shocked
we sailed to Ishimar, near
the maltended Koranies,
whom, so kicked out of luck,
we plundered like figs.
I split each cash sack,
Sack bag, hash sack,
And chick-hag in half &
Half again so by my count
None lacked a quarter.
The jig was up, let's blow
This pop stand, bellowed
My memo, my fax to no avail.
Those wine-bibbed fools,
Stuffed on gyros, horny
Hedonists, partied so down
And nearly away our lives.
For the Koranis wear shirt-
Sails to blouse and buoy,
Camels and horses, hooved
Sandships, they ringed
Our party like an oil spill,
Fell like greased lightning.
A Rockefeller Rose Garden
Of red faces, crowned & thorned,
Made rosy dawn, when they
Attacked, blood-shot. Swift
Ships, port-cramped, blow-fished
With spears. (Zeus gave them
Target practice, which they
Need as fish need bicycles.)
One longass Zero miserable day.
The sun set like our prospect,
And six hands from every deck,
Were stumped & sunk to sea.
A remnant dodged destiny,
Raiding Rice-or-Ronies.
Hand to mouth, hearts
Heavier than our sails, glad
To eat rat hence, we puked
Our grief into Poseidon's eye,
Ecce. Homo. Echo.
Our wailing shipmates,
As cabbage in Koranian stew.
Then the mighty Cloud-Saver
Let Viking winds assail,
Blizzards & blisters fell
Like London fog.
Wyoming wind & still
He added hail on hail.
Nine days waves kissed us.
The fish froze faces.
Aquarium squeaky-cheeky.
Ship's nose dove like a
Whipped horse, our sails
Ripped like tickets.
Dropping our laundry,
We rowed like mating sturgeon
To the shore, tarred
Our faces to the salty deck,
Ate nothing but heart.
Swallowed saliva, spent two moons,
Moaning our own stupid greed.
On the third day, as god
Sellers say, a new day dawned,
Fresh from RosyGold Salon.
And we, 3 sheets to the wind,
And white knuckle to Itacka, flew!
Steady we went, well-steered
And finally all sat down.
Channel-flipper I would be
Now but near Murder Mall,
Shit hit the fan, and North,
Past Cythera's Fairy Port,
We blew again nine days,
Aquariumed, squeaky-cheeked,
Until we came to La La Land,
The home of Lotus sitters, who
Feast at tables of flowers.
A dry land, where you buy
Your water, but we ate by
The fishing pier in port,
Fish deep water fresh,
Then sent two scouts
& one who ran. All three
fell at once into a party,
harmless as a cult, Yoga
lessons, Pina Coladas,
mango-flavored Togas,
bowls of white-sweet Lotus
rising to their noses.
Powder Donut Uber Alles.
Sweetened by Bard Stevens
"Causing boys to pile new plums
And pears on disregarded
Plate, the maidens taste
And stray impassioned
In the littering leaves...."
By such means Hypoglycemians
Rot their brains so hollow
That not even red lights
Turn their heads from
Lotus, 1, 2, 3.
Words dry their tongues.
As if. Not. Like. Whatever.
I clapped them in the hole,
The Danaii method done,
Sang "Poison Poseidon,"
Pinned ears back to oars,
And, caning our own spines,
We beat the sea to mousse.
Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825) was an editor who gave the name "bowdlerize" to English when he published The Family Shakespeare, a version that was excised of all sentiments not suitable to a parlor. He later brought out an equally family-friendly version of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
This poem won an Honorable Mention in the 2009 War Poetry Contest sponsored by Winning Writers. Author Frank Gaik received a $100 award. Copyright is reserved to the author.
About Frank Gaik
Frank Gaik is currently a Professor of Creative Writing at Cerritos College in Norwalk, California, where he has taught since 1989. Born in Chicago and schooled in southern Wisconsin, Gaik received his MFA in Poetry at the University of Arkansas and his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. He has taught writing at UCLA, advertising at Loyola Marymount University, and consumer economics at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising. At Cerritos College, he co-directs the certificate program in creative writing/screenwriting. He has been honored as an Outstanding Faculty member and served as Vice President of the faculty union. He lives in Long Beach with his wife, Linda Palumbo, and two cats.
His poetry has been published in The Southern Review, The Hollins Critic, Cream City Review, Madison Review, Poetry Now, Sport Literate, and the Anthology of Magazine Verse and Yearbook of American Poetry. He has published articles on John Berryman, William Butler Yeats, and adult literacy. His article, "Radio-Talk Show Therapy as Language Game," originally published by Cambridge University Press, is required reading in several anthropology programs and graduate programs in linguistics.
This summer, he initiated the Listening to Iraq Veterans Project at Cerritos College, bringing students together with veterans who share their experiences of the Gulf Wars.
|
|