all the way from your naples birdhouse
all the way from your naples birdhouse
by billy cancel
all the way from your naples birdhouse to serviceable
temptations beneath a floridian sunset i’ll treasure this
nine mouth memory when i’m waiting on black balcony
overlooking gray mountains all the insiders i swallow
know how to cook a wolf & excavate fifty hot dreams
from a classic white cube but i get to rummage in the trash
they kill for a detonate preacher blur clear survival point
is what the sincerest of engines asked of me time & again
i’ll bounce from faceless rooftop dancers like a mosquito
leaving an arm today i need a mural for the end wall
The title of this poem is “all the way from your naples birdhouse” and it’s got a pic of a naked chickadee giving us the ‘double bird’ covered by a skateboard with “Jesus” on it. Great thought went into this pair-up! What thoughtful editors we have. But all these pics of nude women are really getting me turned on too early in the morning damnit! Just kidding!
Anyways…the poem. Ummm. I immediately noticed the line length being somewhat longer than the norm and that poem was block style–it works with this material–good call. There is a lack of traditional punctuation here and the whole poem seems to run-on in a quick jolting delivery of imagery and modern confessionalism exhibiting love, machinery, and self-empowerment in one fell swoop of the pigeon-hawk [sorry, had to get in just one more ‘bird’ allusion in there]. So many ideas so many ideas it’s surely a poem to go back to re-reading and seeing the things left untouched prior.
I did hiccup mentally when i read: “i’ll treasure this
nine mouth memory when i’m waiting on black balcony…” thinking there might have been a typo with ‘nine mouth’ with the true intent being ‘nine month’. ‘Nine month’ would have injected the 3 tri-mester birthing (or hatching) motiff into what i believe to be a letter written to the poet’s former lover–perhaps this is the opposite of life–a relationship ending in 9 months. hmm. that would have been phenomenal. Though references to ‘9 months’ and impregnation itself may be deemed a bit cliche’ and the poet wanted to throw a curve ball by saying ‘9 mouths’ instead–mmm. abstract yet intriguing.
Simile at end of poem finishes off the tail-feathers of this piece beautifully: “i’ll bounce from faceless rooftop dancers like a mosquito leaving an arm today i need a mural for the end wall.” Again, i really got the notion that poet is coming out of relationship with lover and is trying to make sense out of world and trying to move on in whatever way he can. That’s just my take on first couple reads. I may read it tomorrow and think it’s about Walt Whitman eyeing the check-out boys in a supermarket in California. Who knows? –Only the shadows…