Vertical systems are inevitably doomed to failure,
dependent on insidious minimum charges
and the unending paragraph.
Logic defies reason while sanity slips away
faster than a daytime thief;
the hotel clerk at the reception desk
laughs mysteriously while checking ID's
to make sure the stranger's face is valid.
No password is required in this land
of muzac and midnight musings -
a call to the wild destined to go unheard.
The air is stifling and the pool-side restaurant's
not open. A friend in Germany, a poet,
has not been heard from in seven days.
North Korea will soon fire toward Hawaii,
adding yet another level of twisted, cosmic irony
regarding the "D-day" wedding.
A West African accent, faces as dark as night,
and the computerized piano wrenching out
painfully upbeat melodies while plastic keys
allow confused and aimless travellers entrance
into sterile rooms with clean bathrooms and I am aching
for company tonight...
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Rolling
metaness
James M. Emmerling
Chuck A. Stetson
Jimenace
Newton Fortuin
Salon.com
Comments
I'm going to have to go piecemeal on this one...
First line: "vertical systems are inevitably doomed to failure".Whyzzat? to be elucidated with yr imagery....though: two culprits identified...1."insidious minimum charges" and 2. "unending paragraphs"...
Multiple interpretations: financial, of course... & ...intellectual-moral. A charge is a cost, but it's also a task imposed, and...something given into your care. They are minimum. but, shit, they add up! insidious...i.e. having gradual,cumulative effect...sly, treacherous....costs on yr purse, yr time, yr energy...how could you fly with all these things pulling at you? at your very resources? all these..."paragraphs"... to read....in others' actions & words & faces & eyes, as well as in yr beloved books....ach...
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Responsiblity...that is what keeps us horizontally-inclined. In communion with those of our kind. It's a big messed up world , but clean & sterile IN HERE,with US, yr fellow vacationers... and of course, realistically,we're all in the same boat, and we're all HERE for each other, blah blah blah....see how seriously we take yr SAFETY? we keep you plenty safe! not only from the wild world outside this hotel's perimeter, (um...the urge is to insert "hotel California ", the eagles, here, but they play that so much it seems cliche)(Though! ha...they must play it all the time for a REASON, right?)
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the poetess is alone, on...vacation...yeah, but the hotel , though grand & modern, is pretty...unlively, to say the least. Other people?Well, just to get in, your mug's gotta be validated . "yep, you're in, you're you, it seems,...you're who the plastic card says you are...here's yr plastic card to get into yr swell room we've provided", the desk clerk says...not one of them serious desk clerks, though: a clerk who is aware of the absurdity of his ...charge? his duty? So yre in: and... Dark faces, merley.muzak. computerized upbeat melodies as you mingle at a distance. Separation, in a safe, modern environment...no harm, even from the music. nothing to offend anyone's sensibilities. A west african accent! oh, lovely...how musical....how unthreatening...we all love the Africans...maybe the poetess sends some village 50 cents a day to " make a difference in a child's life"...from a distance..
Is it Hawaii we are in? (a bit of synchroicty on a small scale, there...see PM, written before this poem found)....Look out, then...!...well, yes, a dangerous world, we all know that, that's why we vacation responsibly...and want our hotels safe....too safe? well, yeah, maybe but you know the saying, "cant be too safe these days"
"Charges" are
We're a bit...out of time & space here, but hey, that shit happens to the best of us...I've heard of VJ day weddings, but never D DAy weddings! Funny...we barely remember DDAy these days...but George the German Principal's routine on June 6 was to sternly remind me, his best student: "JIM! YA KNOW WHAT DAY IT IS TODAY, JA?" "Um, Christmas Dad? Arbor Day?" (wiseass) ..."NO!!!!! IT ID D DAY!...blah blah blah" every year, Angie, same schtick...
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My point: those oldtimers took/take it seriously. The day we liberated France. Europe. The americans are coming! Germany will be brought down! All missing poets will be found & reunited on CNN with their families...
So basically, in typical Angie-fashion, you have created threatening -mayhem on a large scale...on two fronts....same fronts we fought in the 40's...Pacific & European...Postmodern-Pearl Harbor(another of dad's favorites..."a day that will live in infamy") & DDay all over again....threatened on all sides....an ironic wedding, though...god help em, hope the reception aint in yr hotel...
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the end of the poem, to come down from the collective & square into the personal, is unspeakably poignant...you rattle off all these high images ("and...and...and...")& you end with the unanswered ...um, statement of FACT:
"I am aching for company tonight"
nothing collective about that, i dont think...
Jim
In Western Maryland there are four prisons.
A drunken prison warden who wears a yarmulke.
A vegan who is arrested in a fraudulent bank gets Life.
On the first day of his checkin, he's smirked at by guards.
A farmer vegan is issued two red pairs of matching socks.
A rabbi chaplain grins to hear inmates say:`Praise Jesus!
So, for every dinner he's served:`bacon, meatloaf, and ham.
For good behavior he gets:`chicken rice soup and pork chops.
Finally, matching socks, Koran, jade chopsticks, and no bedbugs.
Meat entrees, prison home-brew-wine, and soft-tan-suede shoes. Life's good.
Amaranth.
*Amazing*
Ay jejune.
Be bashful.
Want to meet convict con criminal.
I'll introduce? O sing alto in the loft?
The barley straw makes you sneeze.
Agnostic Lawyer converts.
Then? Becomes a chaplain.
A Lily? A plump ladies one.
You meet some jolly Friars.
I mean:`Our in the stickers.
off to left:`blueberry Place.
A plump Lutheran weighs?
A pretty 368 pounds. nice.
i did some time for whiteboy dui antics , and his vision of the prison system is 99.99% accurate, although
korans were a big issue...they were actually only handed out to
White Anglo Saxon Protestants (WASPs), who were instructed to trade them for the WASPy stuff the A-Rabs got.and there were alot of them, i tellyou....but...
we all got along fine...it was wise of the Prison Commissioner here in CT to establish such a policy, to mend fences & get the multi-C experience. We all sang together in chow hall, eating our bacon & ham
& drinking our homebrew wine.
The vegans, tho...were not treated well...nuff said about that, the shrieks from the
showers where the big black guys took em was...
quite traumatic. Still. To this day...
(I am trying to detect changes in yr poem, A...my memory is NOT serving me well...i t does seem to flow
smoother,
or maybe i just flow smoother now...)
jme
Newton: You are spot on in the literalness of your interpretation - Good show!
James: You are spot on the spot that is on the spot. I think Newton is right: Together we are genius unfolding (hey, Newton said it first, not me). Strangely dependent on the other's contribution.
Arthur James: The curving-road-watch-out-what's-coming-next comments are always a mind-bending, stomach-clenching, vertigo-inducing delight to read.
But my feet are too small to fill your clown-shoes adequately....
And thanks to all else who took time to comment - unexpected, but always appreciated.
it's f...ing what we preach in our big fancy language, isnt it? the One & the communal collective soul or un-conscious or whatever we are calling it today...
well, that's made up of people of like mind, like interests, like books, like knowledge, etc...nothing mystical about that...yet...of course, at the same time there is...some damn fine mystical shit happening, right here in Newton's metaphor for the implicate/explicate stuff i just
commented on over there in the post with the weird diagram on top..."heart of the matter'.....i put all this bohm bizness to rest ....ha....
now, about them ads...ah who cares...its the nature of the beast for whom we toil...
a helpful, greedy slavering Beast of "Revelation" proportions who wants to pay us for all our smart talk & sez, "you 3 dunces could make a fortune" and we'll help you in our clumsy way
all we can...words aint no good if they sit stagnant in personal blogs...there are a billion of em & they usually are more...um....fleshy & sadistically oriented ...alot of hot air on Obama's shoe size ....like: what does it reveal to his female fans, re his...um...
any way, they are not the enemy ...the Enemy is those who would deny us the use of our valve....
"everyone got a valve!!!!" Ignatius tells us...
"Mine is simply more developed...I am trying to open a passage which
(these idiots) may have succeeded in blocking...."
oh, lets not let it get "permanently closed now" for all our slobbish brother tells us on p 42
...jim
it's f...ing what we preach in our big fancy language, isnt it? the One & the communal collective soul or un-conscious or whatever we are calling it today...
well, that's made up of people of like mind, like interests, like books, like knowledge, etc...nothing mystical about that...yet...of course, at the same time there is...some damn fine mystical shit happening, right here in Newton's metaphor for the implicate/explicate stuff i just
commented on over there in the post with the weird diagram on top..."heart of the matter'.....i put all this bohm bizness to rest ....ha....
now, about them ads...ah who cares...its the nature of the beast for whom we toil...
a helpful, greedy slavering Beast of "Revelation" proportions who wants to pay us for all our smart talk & sez, "you 3 dunces could make a fortune" and we'll help you in our clumsy way
all we can...words aint no good if they sit stagnant in personal blogs...there are a billion of em & they usually are more...um....fleshy & sadistically oriented ...alot of hot air on Obama's shoe size ....like: what does it reveal to his female fans, re his...um...
any way, they are not the enemy ...the Enemy is those who would deny us the use of our valve....
"everyone got a valve!!!!" Ignatius tells us...
"Mine is simply more developed...I am trying to open a passage which
(these idiots) may have succeeded in blocking...."
oh, lets not let it get "permanently closed now" for all our slobbish brother tells us on p 42
...jim
dependent on insidious minimum charges
and the unending paragraph."
hmm... then we wake up to a new system in OS dependent on ad-driven charges - For our un-ending paragraphs.
future-sight, yes, incredible.
If you don't know, now you know.
peece,
dj
I am off to Oahu for a week or so...I shall return! Be Well!