Poetics and Ruminations

Miss Pussy's Parlor Songs, Part One

Claudette McFang

 

MISS PUSSY'S PARLOR SONGS

Trumpty Dumpty sat on his wall.
Trumpty Dumpty had a great fall.
He climbed up his wall and fell down again
And again, and again, and again, and again.

Wee Donald Trumpkin runs through the town,


Peeing on the hookers in his nightgown,


Peering through the windows, crying through the locks,


"Are the johns all in their beds and turning on their cocks?"

I had a little nut tree --
Nothing would it bear
But a Donald Trumpkin
And some pubic hair.

The President of Russia
Hacked Hillary and me,
And all for the sake
Of my little nut tree.

Bumpity, bumpity, bump,
My name is Twittery Trump,
I eat out of pans and old tin cans
Because my mind is a dump, a dump,
Because my mind is a dump.

Bah! Bah! Donald,
   Have you any hair?
"Yes sir, yes sir --
   You had best beware,
For I have no master:
   I will maul any dame,
Because the mighty lion
   Has an orange mane."

An owl flew onto Donald's hair.
It bent and pecked his pate's scalp bare
So it would have space for a turd --
I wish I were that wise old bird.

Donald had a little ram,
It's fleece was black as ink,
And everywhere that Donald went
The ram was sure to slink.

It followed him to work one day
And caught Monica's scent.
From that point on that is the room
Where all their time was spent

Wutchugonnado

 

WUTCHUGONNADO

A fable of the noble savage

Listen to Lewis Turco read his poem "Wutchugonnado"

 

Wutchugonnado by the brookside,

Squaw at his side,

Crow caw overhead,

Speckled fish on the speckled riverbed,

Sat in the painted sun,

Thoughts on Wutsicumminto,

Wutsicumminto, his son.

 

Dappled ripples lap-lapped

At the mottled clay bank,

Shadows sank floating logs;

Thoughts were driftwood,

Little good;

Thoughts were braveness muscled in

Bronze skin;

Thoughts were stone-tipped,

Ice-nipped,                                                   

Birch-bark wilderness;

Thoughts were crushed dreams,

Dead schemes, sere themes

In the painted sun.

 

Wutchugonnado dreamt of

Savage hunt love,

Land of moccasin's pad-pad

On the forest trail;

Dreamt of clear eye,

Night cry,

Glowing-coal smoke, starlit night cloak,

Solemn peace pipe, flame on cheek bones —

Dreamt of these and many more things:

 

Of his offspring Wutsicumminto,

Of his son, his warrior son,

Bronzed and free

In the white man's factory.

 

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.

The Bride of Paradise

 

THE BRIDE OF PARADISE

By Lewis Turco; listen to the author read his poem "The Bride of Paradise."

 

Life is a journey from womb to tomb,

A trip and a stumble from womb to tomb --

There is no salvation, but there is doom.

 

The underworld's shadows beckon and loom,

The weft of shadow is warped in the loom --

Life is a journey from womb to tomb.

 

The bride is the widow of the groom,

She is the relict of the groom --

There is no salvation, but there is doom.

 

The bride is the weaver at the loom,

For life is a shuttle from womb to gloom,

A trip and a stumble from womb to tomb.

 

The bird of Paradise wears a plume --

His bride of Paradise has no plume.

Although she wears an aura of doom.

 

The bride Is the relict of the groom,

She is the weaver at the loom

That shuttles us all from womb to doom,

For life is a journey from womb to tomb.

 

Copyright © 2016 by Lewis Turco, all rights reserved.

The View from a Tower Window

 

 

I am standing in the window of the tower at an artist’s colony in upstate New York, and I am looking down at the fountain behind the mansion because I can think of nothing to write today. That’s why I’m here, I’m supposed to be writing.

The man is walking toward the fountain, and the sky is blue. He stops at the wall and looks at the sculpture of two nude nymphs and a satyr that lies against the woods under the mountain.

       In his pressed white jacket the man leaves the fountain, and the sky is still blue. The man stops beneath me on the lawn. He is waiting. The wall stops as well and surrounds the white sculpture of two nude nymphs and the satyr who lie beside the woods under the mountain. In the other rooms of the mansion people are writing things, and in the studios on the grounds artists are painting and sculptors are sculpting.

       No one is left to look at the fountain, and the sky is less blue. One nymph stands and yawns in the white sculpture of two nudes and a smiling satyr lying beside the woods under the mountain. The first nymph stretches her arms above the fountain, and now the sky is clouding. The other trails her fingers in the green hue of the pool where the nymphs and satyr lie beside the woods beneath the mountain.

       Above, I stand in the tower window watching. I should be sitting before my laptop tapping on the keys, listening to the patter of words falling onto the virtual page, but the mist of the water in the fountain is a curtain, and the sky is clouding.

       The man in the jacket returns to the sculpture where the two nude nymphs and the satyr lie still beside the woods beneath the mountain. The mist of the water is a curtain, and the sky is cloudy. Now a girl trails her fingers in the aquamarine of the pool where the nymphs and the satyr lie beside the woods by the still mountain, where the man stands looking at the sculpture and at the girl as I stand watching rather than writing in the tower window.

Italian Americana Review of THE HERO ENKIDU

The Hero Enkidu: An Epic by Lewis Turco, New York: Bordighera Press (www.BordigheraPress.org ), VIA Folios 107, 2015, 101 pp. ISBN 978-1-59954-098-6, trade paperback.

Iowa Alumni Bookshelf, February 2016

 

 

 

The Hero Enkidu: An Epic by Lewis Turco, New York: Bordighera Press (www.BordigheraPress.org ), VIA Folios 107, 2015, 101 pp. ISBN 978-1-59954-098-6, trade paperback.

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The Green Knight and the White

Zombie, from A BOOK OF BEASTS

 

THROWBACK THURSDAY

 

 

 Image by Louise Dickinson-Brown

 

ZOMBIE

 By Lewis Turco

 

Outside the door, the noises of the sleugh.

indoors, the tropic heat, the potted ferns,

a palm stuck in the corner near the couch.

She waits and picks at lint. Her fingers run

through her hair. "It's nerves, just nerves," she says,

but still she listens.

                               And then the sudden knock.

The potted palm sweats. Its leaves ripple.

She cannot speak. Then — "Yes, who is it?" She

gets up and smooths her skirt. Another knock.

She goes toward the door. The mirror there

beside the clock shows her what she must see:

a plain young woman with faded eyes, her hair

a neutral shade. "What does he want with me?"

she tells the glass.

                              "Who's there?" she asks again.

"I've come," he says. She reaches for the knob.

Her palms are sweating: they slip as her fingers turn.

She pauses — pulls.

                                 He stands there on the stoop,

his eyes too bright and blank. His puffy skin

is white as mallow in the dimming light.

He has no hair. His body is too stiff.

His mouth gapes as he looks at her. She starts,

 

but catches herself. His hat is in one hand;

the other goes to his tie. He clears his throat.

"We'd better hurry," she says, "or we'll be late."

She turns off the light, picks up her coat, her purse,

and moves toward the door. He stands aside,

closes the door, and follows her into the night.

 

     From an unpublished manuscript, A Book of Beasts, poems by Lewis Turco, illustrations by Louise Dickinson-Brown; the poems may be found in Fearful Pleasures: The Complete Poems of Lewis Turco 1959-2007, Scottsdale, AZ: www.StarCloudPress.com, 2007. ISBN 978-1-932842-19-7, cloth; ISBN 978-1-932842-20-3, paper. Also available in a Kindle edition.

Yeti, from A BOOK OF BEASTS

 

THROWBACK THURSDAY

 

 

 

Image by Louise Dickinson-Brown

 

YETI

 By Lewis Turco

 

We do not know whether the tales are true

nor, if they are, why he will not come down

out of the high slopes and the winter peaks

where he has lived, they say, since earth was new.

He is called Eldfather: The name bespeaks

 

ingle and hearth, perhaps, but he disdains

to take such comforts. So, from dawn to dimpse

he ranges his sterilities alone,

casting his shaggy glances to the plains

below the wind, taking nor giving rone.

 

And is he Adam, then, as some assume,

or Abel's line at least, rejecting Cain

with all his artifacts — the roaky skies

choking the murderous cities' palling doom

and piling scroil? Does he recall the lies

 

an uncle told, therefore seek out the screeve

of cloud along a ridge? It may be so.

And it may also be he is the beast

of solitude — merely that. Let him grieve

or joy and wander, coldly fast or feast

 

where blizzards rail and the planets hover.

Our crops are sown in blood upon the nover.

 

     From an unpublished manuscript, A Book of Beasts, poems by Lewis Turco, illustrations by Louise Dickinson-Brown; the poems may be found in Fearful Pleasures: The Complete Poems of Lewis Turco 1959-2007, Scottsdale, AZ: www.StarCloudPress.com, 2007. ISBN 978-1-932842-19-7, cloth; ISBN 978-1-932842-20-3, paper. Also available in a Kindle edition.

Xoanon, from A BOOK OF BEASTS

 

THROWBACK THURSDAY

 

 

 

Image by Louise Dickinson-Brown

 

XOANON

 

By Lewis Turco

 

         Its body is like that

   of a buffalo, black and thick.

         It is lugsome as mud.

It depresses me to think of it,

     lying there in the corner

under a table of my study.

 

         It is best that I not

   look at it, though its eyes are closed.

         I have fed it a root

of nightshade, and it is sleeping. It

     will not cast me one of its

killing glances for a while. It is

 

         content in its despair.

   Its dreams fill that boarskull and spill

         out of the bristles, rank

as gorge, into lamplight. I try not

     to watch these visions in shades

of pallor and nocolor. Its neck

 

         querls about its body,

   translucent as intestine. In

it, slowly spiraling,the night

shade darkens and dissolves. If

     I rise, it will rise as well.

Its lids will open to slits, its neck

 

         uncoil; it will lumber

   after me, nearly stepping on

its chin, for I have tamed

Xoanon. I stop and stare it down.

     It moans, heaves beneath my bed

to watch me dream of it. The beast knows

 

         its master, knows that I

   will not think of it if I will,

that I can strike to its

heart with a look. And Xoanon knows

     as well parasite from host,

knows who shall cast the last glance at last —

 

   who is the master's bete noir.

 

     From an unpublished manuscript, A Book of Beasts, poems by Lewis Turco, illustrations by Louise Dickinson-Brown; the poems may be found in Fearful Pleasures: The Complete Poems of Lewis Turco 1959-2007, Scottsdale, AZ: www.StarCloudPress.com, 2007. ISBN 978-1-932842-19-7, cloth; ISBN 978-1-932842-20-3, paper. Also available in a Kindle edition.

Vielfras, from A BOOK OF BEASTS

 

THROWBACK THURSDAY

 

 

 

Image by Louise Dickinson-Brown

VIELFRAS

 

By Lewis Turco

 

     He inhabits a precious pelt,

dogsize, but a hunger greater than he

   inhabits him. He is the gorger

     Vielfras, habitant of scrog

 

     and underbrush. All creatures grand

and minuscule are his prey. Upon his

   thick legs the long body moves, silent

     as snow, until his bright teeth close

 

     and rend. He will devour the roe,

the boar, the ox — anything greater than

   himself, his sac of fur swelling till

     it strains to split. Then, he will seek

 

     two close-standing saplings and squeeze

between them, head first, disburdening his

   swollen bowels of their freight. If he

         is captured somehow — stunned, perhaps,

 

     by blunt arrows so as not to

damage his variegated fur — when

   he wakes in a pit, he will attack

         mortar and stone, eat his way out,

 

and noggle awkwardly into

   the winter air toward his trees. If he

is chased, the hunter behind will be

   pelted with half-digested rock.

 

   The flesh of Vielfras, they say,

tastes like hunger. It will grow in the paunch,

   and he who wears a coat of its skin

     may never remove it again.

 

     From an unpublished manuscript, A Book of Beasts, poems by Lewis Turco, illustrations by Louise Dickinson-Brown; the poems may be found in Fearful Pleasures: The Complete Poems of Lewis Turco 1959-2007, Scottsdale, AZ: www.StarCloudPress.com, 2007. ISBN 978-1-932842-19-7, cloth; ISBN 978-1-932842-20-3, paper. Also available in a Kindle edition.

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