Lewis Turco on his 82nd birthday, May 2, 2016
Listen to Lewis Turco read his poem, "The Lament of Turko the Terrible":
"She heard old Royce sing in the pantomime of Turko the terrible
and laughed with others when he sang:
I am the boy
That can enjoy
Invisibility." — from Ulysses by James Joyce.
Some folk call me Turco,
Turko the terrible Turk.
James Joyce wrote about me
Through some fantastic quirk —
For he could not know of me,
Since I had not been born.
Still, he'd the sense to counsel
The ages and to warn
That I'd appear
To strain your ear
And hospitality:
I am the boy
That can enjoy
Invisibility.
I have been pantomiming
Now over eighty years,
Scribbling and inditing
So much you'd think the tears
Of editors and readers
Would swamp the Muses' boat.
But no, not even Turco
Can sink it — it will float
Down Moby's road
Despite my load
Of inability.
I am the boy
That can enjoy
Invisibility.
What's fine about my singing
Is not my crackling voice,
But that, though I go inkling,
The world still has its choice,
Like Royce, to miss or laugh at
The witless fogs I pen.
The stars, they go on spinning;
The Earth now and again
Churns as I sing,
And fall and spring
At things as they may be.
I am the boy
That can enjoy
Invisibility.
From The Collected Lyrics of Lewis Turco / Wesli Court 1953-2004, Scottsdale, AZ: www.StarCloudPress.com, 2004, 460 pp., ISBN 1-932842-00-4, jacketed cloth; ISBN 1-932842-01-2, trade paperback. Also available from Amazon.com in a Kindle edition.
