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Contests : Wergle Flomp Free Poetry Contest : Past Winners : 2009 : Kenzo Kon Dedạ-Duozhu
IN BED WITH ST. IGNATIUS THESE LATE ANTIQUITY NIGHTS:
A MANIFESTO ON ASPIRATION
st ignatius is an assorted kindness, six lemon merengues
[after a snickers dinner, wolfed down every snapping morsel];
received his treatise, endearingly personal, what a read
unlike this writing hiding more than revealing
checked out his book collection, then an exclamation:
"oh my! you are christian!" as eyes wandered
—one jesus title, one pauline one, whole tome on origen—
one titled "who was a jew?", and we went hysterical
the derridean moment of what that title could possibly mean;
had to clean up his room
its hurricane-swept disorder unchanged since hilary duff visited
after an hour, hadn't observed any critical improvement
["iggy, moving a pile of clothes from one end of the bed
to the other doesn't really clean anything up"];
**********
iggy is a serious catholic, susses out dignity and takes issue
its openness, that lack of tradition [he says the older types
would so come on to me, but decided against one-hit wonders
new-kid pride on the block, passed-around candle in the wind
like this little light of mine and how they're gonna let it shine];
let it shine, on monday, on tuesday, on wednesday, not thursday
because beyoncé is "irreplaceable" and people-watching
on friday after the cathars and cappadocians
on saturday between derrida's archive fever and annie dillard
her writing life for the umpteenth back-slapping time];
suddenly struck by need, thoreau a lifestyle return:
"as for the sensuality in whitman's leaves of grass
I do not so much wish that it was not written
as that men and women were so pure
that they could read it without harm";
**********
iggy understands my work-it needs
—say these butt-gripping things—
respects my polemical stance despite its friction against his good
dear beliefs [him dabbling in sacramental theology
whole other schmuel-flash milky way
but we need to construct worlds for ourselves
and rightfully so; iggy abhors people who rage
against the church without any solutions—
both admit he'll work for the good from within
me doing the scott-weiland good from without];
what kind of friends will we be, ten hubris years from now?
iggy is real like a celestine prophecy
intimate as sade, her pack-a-day kiss of life
[whipping off his mambo shirt, trying on a bright pink tee
emblazoned with "flirt", then pulling on a baby blue other
shirt off, flexed pecs; pants down, lap-dance show—
he's not wearing underwear, enough for me to say
"girlfriend, I really only go for older men"];
**********
iggy once offered me a mercy fuck
like a sleeper hit, brass-eyed on bourbon
had me cracking up, conspicuous plaster, a wrier paris
[arm around his shoulder, this rejoinder:
"darling, that's too much inbreeding for my liking"];
no need to fuck per se
[really get off on grey matter and snazzy sidewalks
what any sort of request I would fulfill
like a party present, jump out in vapid surprises];
iggy had a bad spat, souring girlfriend in two-wheeler circles
stayed and listened, languid as rufus wainwright:
"look, iggy, this is method, how poets should be treated
they only ever want to be loved, loved beyond lennox
beyond kravitz, loved beyond every mad enraging test
they're cursed with the daemon that demands you walk
pyre, bondage through earth-wind-fire for them—
for love for a poet knows no restraint";
**********
"offer that kind of absolution, lantern from within
—stay with her—but if you can't, stay away
because poets can't help it, an abject need
as if scuzzy heavens yanked them by belled ankles
fingers claw at oxygen just to get at pith bits
that rich percy-sledge feeling, of speechless love";
[dionne farris, dead of night, if only "for once in my life"];
"however, and listen hard, iggy blue-eyes
if you can sit it out with a poet, out of pretense
or the nocturne genuine, rich taste with suitable body
a poet will love you in toto, sweet and peach schnapps
in these times, that sort of love scarcely gets respect
everyone needs their island-dotting space:
what does that mean [these jammies days-on-end]?
I mean what does that mean?";
people just need to know what they want, snapshot caption
[have the ballyhoo courage to say it];
**********
but thoreau already explained this away, heart-shaped cockles:
"silence is the universal refuge
the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts
a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety
as after disappointment; that background which the painter
may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which
however awkward a figure we may have made
in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum
where no indignity can assail
no personality can disturb us";
so there went my week, when on good friday, he told me
to watch and pray, on saturday, he told me just what to say
and on palm sunday, he gave power supernal and divine
just to let my little light shine; he tells me that if
there's a dark corner in our land
[twee and renewed popularity]
you've got to let your little banshee light shine.
Sent as a joke to PoetryAmerica, this poem was a finalist in the 2009 Wergle Flomp humor poetry contest sponsored by Winning Writers.
About Kenzo Kon Dedạ-Duozhu
Kenzo Kon Dedạ-Duozhu thinks that this poem should be read under adult artist supervision, and having learnt from apology tours, is the first to say sorry if any of this comes across anywhere offensive to anyone.
Enter flarf, the experimental poetry movement that's even bagged an annual showing at Manhattan's Bowery Poetry Club. It'll be nice to watch flarf-in-action in a rock garden. A Chinese man in Turfan is thinking aloud, eyes squinting, Gucci sunnies. There's a Mani-Mystic Flarfist in the family room, sort of like Smurfette before she turned platinum, watching the silent films of William Desmond Taylor.
"Can Flarf Ever Be Taken Seriously?" Poets & Writers asked in its July/August 2009 issue.
Kenzo Kon Dedạ-Duozhu is thrilled that this poem has been placed in the Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest, one more classroom exercise for his creative writing students, to ask questions about aesthetics and censorship and blazing trails and wave-catching and authenticity and satire and good ol' fun, and what's okay to say and not to say. And what artistic freedom means. And Paul Kindsedt's Complete Guide To Making and Selling Artisan Cheeses. And how seriously the world seems to take itself nowadays, even as we start taking seriously the none-too-serious. The entries in Wergle Flomp will one day make for a solid anthology, now that the Whitney has given its solid nod and yes, yes, yes, yes, yes the way Julia Kristeva is pure panache, literature's very own Chanel.
Charmed by numerology and No. 5 too, Kenzo Kon Dedạ-Duozhu likes the calories in roasted almonds and is trying to drink water instead of diet soda nowadays. He wishes he had visited Seattle when he was in America though, just to taste Fran's chocolates.
Kenzo Kon Dedạ-Duozhu is a silicon polymer.
He is also known by his noms de plume "ars gratia artis" and "l'art pour l’art", depending on whether he's into dactylic hexameters or French pleats. He presently fears for his life, and has gone into hiding in Monet's The Cliff at Étretat after the Storm, its freshwater zen helping to contain his chichi, decenter its chinking sounds, and redirect his sparkling qi. Like a bit of bling, bling over a resonant nightlight, beside a stringing machine.
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