Prelude to a Kiss
Prelude to a Kiss
by Le Hinton
some of my enemies are brilliant
like green emeralds in mud
with salamanders keeping watch
by night
one wanted to ask Mother Teresa
out on a New Year’s Eve date
in ’99 but he couldn’t find her number
i told him that it wouldn’t work out
because she had given up dating
for death a couple years before
and she preferred violets on a first date
he was allergic to all things beautiful
but sex with a would-be saint is good for the soul
oh Calcutta
birth control cures many ills
birth control prevented a cure for cancer
a southern delta is better than a northern exposure
like it or not but who doesn’t like Charlottesville
with her pants down
Tommy and Sally moaned louder than most
while Mrs. Jefferson rode quietly in her bedroom
discretion is often the better part of great sex
oh Monticello
Sheet poppin’ in-the-sack[religious]! SMACKS of the zine-infected! …honest, humorous, irreverent, splashing on ‘taboo’ with the world awareness of a great Sasquatch-Shamu. …warrants re-reads too; i almost missed that ‘southern delta’ and ‘northern exposure’ symbolism. The epitome of epiphany in effigy! …it made me want to eat muffins again. Thx Le Hinton!
I’m too dumb to figure this out I guess. And I think maybe I won’t bother to try. Cuz maybe it just doesn’t float any sort of boat I might have or may ever obtain. But don’t let my little brain’s chatter get you down. I like lots of your other stuff.
i don’t think you’re dumb; i think, based on your poetry, that you are less abstract/more concrete in your style. …Nothing wrong with that. Different stokes for different folks. But i really admired the nice way you expressed your feelings. No little brain involved here, just different preferences… A lot of us so-called Modernist poets tend to bring up hedonistic/sacreligious topics also (because we’re hovering in-between that limbo/purgatory of moral man/woman and aesthetic man/woman…we haven’t made our peace with God yet. I don’t know if i speak for Le Hinton, that’s just how i feel. And you seem more at peace judging from your works, and have moved on to other things. It’s just an idea…maybe wrong since i have been in an interpretive slump here lately…
Nice analysis Quasi on the whole modernist/underground poet’s motivation. You read so much these days by poets who are so completely rooted in the mud and shit of life that one has to wonder about mankind’s relationship to God. I am not a ‘religious” person, in the monotheistic sense, but sometimes I lament the death of Rumi and Neruda and the rise of Bukowski. Don’t get me wrong, Hank is one of my favorites, but I think so many of us are left to imitate him because we can’t see through his drunken, fucked perspective. I write mundane shit, too, but I strive for Neruda’s grace on my better days.
Now, this is no comment on Le’s poem, which i think is fabulicious. Or Tara’s work, which is rock-solid and emotionally powerful. Or yours, my dear friend, which is just old-fashioned crazy and brilliant. I’m just frustrated by how similar some poets are these days with their nasty imagery and love of shock value. I know, I know, life sucks. Tell me something good. Sing me some Chaka Khan.
quasimofo (did i ever ask you about your alias? quasimofo… taht could mean so many things, not the least of all “sort of a mother f_ckre” – no insult intended.) ~ anyway, spank you very much for the positive feedback. again, your astuteness is showing; pull down your skirt /zip your fly. yeah, i do feel at peace with the God thing. that is not to say that i have It figured out, but i’m comfortable enough in my fallibilities and temporal clumsiness because i know it leads to eventual graceful progressing perfection through eternity. hmmm… does that make sense? It would take a long time to explain. probably i should delete that very clumsy sentence up there, but i won’t. suffice it to say that i enjoy all your comments and much of your work (here on Haggard and elsewhere).
Misener ~ i concur. the passing of Rumi, and Neruda (and i must add Rilke and even Plath -as disparate as they are) leaves the lexicon with gaping holes. i disagree with any suggestion implicating bukowski’s work as attractive. the hole he leaves in the lexicon is an open window letting in fresh air. i know, i know…i’m going to catch hell for saying that. i’m entitled to my opinion though.
but you really hit the head when you said,
“many of us are left to imitate him because we can’t see through his drunken, fucked perspective.” as a matter of fact bukowski’s friend gerald locklin wrote,
“those who would write like bukowski
know that he, as a young man, loved
classical music, wrote every day,
read world literature, supported himself
without parental or government assistance,
and drank a lot.
but when it comes to modeling themselves
on him as writers
they tend to forget everything
except the drinking.”