FRENCH QUARTER POETRY

_________________________

FRENCH QUARTER POETRY

__________________________________

“The 19th century—
happened for me around
my 19th birthday.”
—Andrei Codrescu,
“Not A Pot To Piss In,”
The Muse Is Always
Half-Nude in New Orleans

Lafayette Cemetery

Have you ever felt—
Like you were living, breathing
Dying & rotting?

All at the same time—
Lafayette Cemetery
Is that fucking way.

Smoking pot at night—
Makes the living dead alive
Big Easy the Tomb.

I used to be dead—
But dope said that’s being square
“Surprise me,” it smirked.

So one dark midnight—
Down there in Chez Lafayette
I got stoned real good.

That dynamite weed said—
Dead as all these folks up here
That’s you these past years.

Pot can be shapely—
Shaped by dark purplish shadows
Smoke knows death, my dear.

A metaphor came—
Filling me with emptiness
Scattering my thoughts.

“Who are you?” they asked—
“And what do you want?” they said
Pot made them leery.

“Who are you?” I asked—
“And where do you come from?”
The tombs whispered “Home.”

View Carré Voyants

Mardi Gras ghosts spoke—
Thru me they could live again
There in the moonlight.

It was midnight then—
In the dark garden of good
And Big Easy evil.

“You’ll be our Poet—
For us French Quarter Voyants
We’ll see thru your eyes.”

“Our dear raison d’etre—
Even tho you are cross-eyed
Our second-sight boy.”

“Enivrez-vous—
As Miss Baudelaire once said
So perfectly drunk.”

“Your paradise lips—
So deliciously rotten
Our Queen for a Day.”

“Demiurge delight—
Whose history we shall piece
Together tonight.”

“We have been waiting—
For a young sucker like you
Our young View Carré voyant!”

Big Easy Bijou

They didn’t stop there—
They wrote stories in my head
Invisible ink.

Henceforth they became—
Djinns of the hookah dream
Hashish hooligans.

My pipe overflowed—
Obsessed with young male eros
I got high each night.

Lillith & Venus—
Flowed thru my veins, arteries
Mysterious meat.

Cornucopic cum—
Made me giddy, amorous
Boy poet of pot.

I became their pet—
Neither man nor woman born
I burned just for them.

“Well, smoking that pot—
Is surely the devil’s work”
My friends said to me.

“A Pandora’s Box”—
“Ghosts from Past & Present
Will surely haunt you.”

French Quarter Finesse

But what did they know?—
Slogging thru history blind,
Deaf & fuckin’ dumb.

Imagination—
That’s the reason I survived
Orphée’s talking head.

John’s poor head there on—
Salome’s silver platter
Blank-eyed paradise?

Of course, nobody—
Heard what the living tomb said
The dead womb of words.

Napoleon knew—
His smooth porcelain voice
Elba escapee.

Lost lives spoke to me—
Strolling the cemetery
Nights of past glory.

Laocoon strangled—
Youths forever despotic
Centuries of cock.

Snakes curling from graves—
Transylvanian mountains
Perched above tureens

Lafayette Séances

And so, late at night—
Strange longings, ancient
Dark embroideries.

Mysteriously—
Alert & moiling about
Above ground with me.

Mississippi ooze—
Just inches below each step
Decay, quicksand love.

The rotting odor—
The mildewy stench & stink
Centuries gone by.

Bit Easy moonlight—
Caribbean past glories
Spanish empire gold.

Napoleonic—
Old banana republics
Oozing thru us all.

Young Creole boyfriends—
Young Haitian slaves of love
Chiaroscuro cock.

“You are us” they said—
Inching their way so slowly
Sodom & Miss G.

Epicures in Sepulchers

Vanished people gab—
Epicures in sepulchers
Gourmet groaning groins.

Lafayette midnights—
Broken urns & worn statues
My Voodoo Hoodoo.

The sorrowful songs—
Of desiccating boudoirs
Beneath delta sun.

Relieved angels sigh—
When things cool off late at night
That’s when I listen.

Hidden above ground—
Above slimy squeaky mud
The dead wait for me.

Sucking sweet sorrow—
Cream of my adolescence
I let them drink me.

Leaning against crypts—
Countess Bathory sips my
Spluge squirting on stone.

I beat off for them—
My penis their kind of thing
Cumly nostalgia.

Voodoo Venus-Torsos

Poets fuck around—
Resurrecting living dead
Whispering jazz-texts.

Putting words down on—
Paper so outdated now
Fails all the time.

It’s like writing on—
Clay tablets in cuneiform
Confronting silence.

The started gluttons—
Greed for gruel of young gods
Need more than just words.

Born-again spirits—
Don’t need old dead oracles
They need dumb hustlers.

Greedy dogs from hell—
Beg for boners of young love
Like they used to know.

Consulting the dead—
Takes cum & not merely words
To unlock the fosse.

To wake them again—
Toppling funerariia
Waxing withered hearts.

New Orleans Night

Old coins, dead spiders—
Dried livers, coarse spiky thorns
Death on white-trash cross.

This is not what these—
Imaginary beings
Come back to Earth for.

They don’t want old books—
Spun out not-born of the flesh
Blooming in the void.

It’s the messy world—
Dimly lit City of Night
Rainy cracked pavements.

The yolk of chicken—
Young peasant boy cumly pricks
Straight from the bayou.

Sluggish garfish boyz—
Anchored in swampy romance
One night stand blowjobs.

I can remember—
Dark Carpathian mountains
Son of Dracula.

Son of Dracula

They showed me again—
Dismembered feudal estates
Doomed monasteries.

Dark Ages castles—
Perched on high mountain crags
Bad Balkan boyfriends.

Ghost still drinking blood—
Sucking off young peasant pricks
Seminal midnights.

Count Dracula sucks—
And drinks thick runny mucous
Draining Europe dry.

A thousand virgins—
Pretty pricks from pouty Prague
Budapest bad boyz.

Nietzsche himself signed—
My death certificate more
Than a thousand times.

Communism said—
God is dead & Lenin too
In that Zurich cabaret.

But Dada was dead—
And Cold War gargoyles were dead
Marx & Freud dead too.

French Quarter Boyfriend

My Mardi Gras muse—
My Minoan macho male
Nude Lafitte’s lover.

Came from who knows where—
Illyria all the way to
Daccia Felix.

A serpentine kid—
A Babylonian hustler
With snakes for long ears.

Cumly mountain-folk—
Had traded him centuries
Ago to pirates.

Black Sea vandals who—
Sold him to Greece, Roman pimps
Byzantine whores.

Ali Babu and—
His Forty Thieves knew him well
He outlived them all.

Arabian nights—
Told its sad sordid story
Thank god for hippies.

He hustled my way—
Uncanny Japanese style
As my drug-dealer.

Letting me see him—
His Kabuki kimono
Slipping to the floor.

Nude New Orleans Muse

He had wide shoulders—
Thick petulant-cobalt lips
Rimmed with faint peach-fuzz.

He had a long neck—
From centuries of cruising
Undulating tricks.

He looked like 19—
We sat smoking & chatting
What else could we do?

He blew some smoke-rings—
Into my stunned naïve face
He was a dream-boat.

Once he was Rimbaud—
Making Miss Verlaine grovel
Hash & absinthe.

Hart Crane knew him too—
Aztec-Orizaba trick
Over the railing.

Once he was Beatnik—
Young handsome Neil Cassidy
Hoodlum Fifties stud.

Once he was all mine—
Just a cute Gretna Garbo
Alone as can be.

He told me simply—
Poetry’s challenge was
Hidden in a Pipe.

Intoxicated—
Big easy adolescent
New Orleans nude muse.

_________________________

GOODBYE BATON ROUGE

___________________

“Minutes ago your teachers
were students themselves,
then student-teachers, then
assistant professors, then
tenured professors, and the
whole process was
uninterrupted by anything
more than a summer vacation
in Europe. We are teaching
in an institution run by
institutionalized people who
have invested all their time
into the institution! The
lunatics run the asylum.”
—Andrei Codrescu

“Creative writing programs
over the past half-century
have endorsed the maxim
“Write what you know,” so
why don’t we have more
novels about creative writing
programs? Departmental
meetings, thesis advisories,
workshop tensions, suicidal
poets, deferred student
loans—the material is ripe
for the picking.”—Yelena
Akhtiorskaya, “Teaching
Poetry No Longer Books,”
The Yewish Daily Forward
11/26/2010

___________________________

Andrei Codrescu

Well, so much for Andrei Codrescu & his tenure teaching writing job at Louisiana State University. The Romanian-American poet no longer has to commute between New Orleans where he lives & Baton Rouge where he used to teach. Codrescu retired in 2009 & now haunts his charming Post-Katrina View Carré precincts—the famous French Quarter of the Big Easy still lollygagging down by the polluted, dying Gulf of Mexico.

_______________________________

Parting Gift

Codrescu’s parting gift to LSU since teaching there in 1984—has been the legacy of his creative writing classes & now his summary of what happened, “The Poetry Lesson.” It’s a literary genre in itself—non-fiction, not-poem, not-memoir. Somewhat similar to the amusing rants of Theodore Roethke in his essay “Last Class” about rich Bennington college girls and also reminiscent of Richard Hugo’s “Stray Thoughts on Roethke and Teaching” in Triggering Town.

_______________________________________

New Orleans Writers

Louisiana & especially New Orleans has always attracted writers—like Walt Whitman, Tennessee Williams, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Anne Rice, Andrei Codrescu & many others. After the Katrina Hurricane, the Big Easy itself has become a kind of “Exquisite Corpse”—like Codrescu’s enduring avant-garde literary journal. The flooded, levee-cursed city still walks, talks & tells stories—even as the Gulf of Mexico continues to rot & decay with BP poisons & oily shit & refuse. The dying Redneck Riviera along the coast from New Orleans to Key West—seems to only add to the ongoing Big Easy transgressive charm & eternal View Carré ancient decadence so attractive to poets & writers.

____________________________

The Poetry Lesson

“The Poetry Lesson” is really about Codrescu the creative writing teacher—rather than the campus Mississippi minions who moiled around mindless in his creative writing class. He divided his students into two types: the “restless ironic” ones and the “mordant, obsessive” types—with himself falling somewhere in between.

_____________________________

I Walked With a Zombie (1943)

As for me, Professor Codrescu reminds one of Sandra Dee—the naïve nurse who sails for Haiti in Jacques Tourneau’s moody, film-noir classic “I Walked With a Zombie” (1943). There on an isolated old sugar plantation, in the eerie sugar cane fields under the full moon—she discovers a society of undead Zombies much like the living undead students on the LSU campus. Voodoo drums in the darkness—gimme dat Voodoo-Hoodoo black magic!!! Aint dat where primitive unconscious Poetry comes from—form the hypnotic loins of African Kings, the Mandingo Dark Meat of Dinge Queens & Groaning Gay Goddesses?

________________________________

Haitian Zombies

These living undead Zombies from Haiti—that caused so much trouble & heartache for poor Colonel Sutpen in William Faulkner’s “Absalom, Absalom!!!” Aren’t these Charles Bon Spirits & Philoprogenitive Phantoms—still here among us more alive than dead? Don’t they remain more dead than alive—deep inside us & our haunted, quivering Thighs & throbbing, yearning Pussies?

_______________________________

Balkan Baton Rouge

What’s supposed to happen now—to all those young talented so-called gifted creative writing students there in those empty Codrescu classrooms at LSU? Those silent, echoing Allen Hall Tearoom Séances—and all those queer Quad “Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte” Memories lost now without that crazy Romanian Romantic Voice in the Balkan Baton Rouge Honeysuckle Verandah Evenings?

_____________________________________

Delta Zombie Poetry

Who’s gonna take up the Slack—and the slovenly Slide back into the Louisiana Swampy Slime? Who’s gonna seduce—and push of the undead Delta Zombie Moment into the crummy Present Performance of Poetry Now in the Twenty-First Apocalyptic Millennium?

______________________________________

The Living Dead

Who’s gonna beat the fuckin’ life back into Living Dead—helping the Undead Undergraduates to write living, breathing Poetry again? From the North Louisiana conservative religious right Repug Dummies up there in Shreveport—down to the wild Creole & Cajun cretins of the Zydeco Zombie Bayous way down South? How can these young naïve Louisiana Delta Denizens even begin to wanna write Poetry now anyway?

________________________________

Balkan Beatnik Professor

It’s a natural question for a Transylvanian aging Balkan Beatnik professor like Codrescu to ask—after all the living Undead of Europe & succulent-blood-suckers of the primal Louisiana swamps have a lot in common. Add a little typical fin-de-siècle salaried Euro-ennui and a Dada-esque Leninist flair for scintillating Switzerland café exiles & decaying Austrian-Hungarian cabaret intelligentsia boredom—and what have you got? Obviously more than just a bored retired tenured creative writing teacher—even more bored than his students after years of Exquisite Corpsing in the haunted Ivy-vine Halls of Ancient Academe?

________________________________

John Hazard Wildman

Personally I fondly remember a time when you could still smoke dope in the classroom—ah yes, those were the “good old days” back when Professor John Hazard Wildman & us hippies got stoned & fucked-up just as bad as that dirty old man Yoknapatawpha Faulkner! The Viet Nam War was beginning to warm up—and Integration had descended on the Huey P. Long Banana Republic campus back then in the mid-Sixties. The LSU campus was still rather laid-back & sophisticatedly risqué—with a whiff of hookah now & then as new Amerikan wars & military-industrial-intelligence complex Adventurism was beginning to spread its greedy octopus-tentacles throughout Asia, the Balkans and Iraq-Pakistan-Afghanistan Archipelago.

_____________________________________

W. H. Auden

Even old Beatnik Ginsberg guru—had to finally admit as time went by that War Protest Poetry really didn’t change anything. As Miss Auden said earlier at the beginning of WWII—in some New York City dive with his melancholy “September 1, 1939.” His echoing words: “I sit in one of the dives/On Fifty-Second Street/Uncertain and afraid/As the clever hopes expire/Of a low dishonest decade/Obsessing our private lives/The unmentionable odor of death/Offends the September night.”

___________________________

French Quarter Voyeurs

So much for Poetry & Political Activism—sighs the Moaning Delta Muses & the French Quarter Ghosts. How many hurricanes, floods, fires, invasions, wars—have come & gone over the years? The View Carré coils & uncoils like an Anaconda—with its own slithering, snaky Creative Writing Class creeping outta the Past. With its own jaundice-eyed Water Moccasin Mississippi Delta Memories & Meandering Gulf of Mexico Dreams.

__________________________________

Bourban & Royal

Long after all the wrought-iron balconies have rotted away—on Bourbon & Royal. There’ll still be the stink of decay & decadence—known as French Quarter Petulant Poetry. At the very beginning of any fraudulent enterprise—there’s always a moment of hushed hesitation & haughty silence. As the underlying darkness gloms onto the bourgeois ego—and slowly grows lekk mold on green, mildewing cheese.

THE MOCK POETRY LESSON

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

THE YOKNAPATAWPHA CONFERENCE

_____________________

THE YOKNAPATAWPHA CONFERENCE

______________________

The Yoknapatawphanists

Well, they were back again this year like they were every year & would come back again the next year—back to that decrepit, decaying, old run-down Mansion in the Mississippi woods—that antebellum, stillupkept sorta, Sutpen plantation Dump known as Rowan Oaks. That majestic large Greek Revival old wreck pre-dating the Civil war—standing on four acres of cedars and moonshine woods built by Colonel Shegog from Tennessee back in the 1840s.

Here they come again, all the astute hoity-toity Ivy League Yoknapatawphaists worming & wiggling their way into the unkempt, messy world of William Faulkner—no Stranger to savage nekkid Indians, runaway mulatto Slaves, old fart Kentucky Colonels, old bitter Miss Rosa spinsters, snaky Temple Drake whores, good-hearted Memphis Miss Reba madams, young naïve hustlers like Fonzo & Virgil Snopes, Crummy Creeps like Pervert Popeye, Sex-Maniacs like handsome Alabama Red, strange Mississippi Boyz like Queer Quentin Compson, Faggy country bumpkin Hicks like Henry Sutpen, well-endowed Mandingo Pretty Boyz like Charles Bon, Delta Bad Boyz like crazy Darl Bundren, cute Canadian cock like skanky Shreve McCannon.

_______________________________

Ernest V. Trueblood

.

Oh yes, and of course, the Power behind the Throne, the True Voice of the Faulknerian Imagination, the Delta Bourbon Intelligence back in the Mississippi Wings—none other than Ernest V. Trueblood, Mr. Faulkner’s literary Confidant & white trash Secretary, the actual Authorial Asshole behind the Astounding Apocryphal Agonizing Yoknapatawpha Archipelago Epic. Annealing itself like Mold on Green Cheese to the Ancient Archetypal Archives of Academe—slowly but surely fading away into the Sad Honeysuckle Aching Night, the Languishing Light of Long-Gone Decadent Deep South Augusts drooping over the wilted Magnolia Delta.

Yes, the Yoknapatawphanists were back again—to drink their Mississippi Martinis & Sveltely Schmooze on the Sultry Ole Miss Magnolia-Scented Swing there on the Gossipy Summer Verandah late into the Decadent Decaying Night. More than ready to Revisit the Rich Unbroken Alluvial Delta Bourbon Academic Fields of—Nostalgic Youthful Negritude & Teenage High Yellow Horizons opening up the once offensive, derogatory Postmodern Picaresque Pickaninny Negro Stereotype often still seen running around WalMart at Midnight on School Nights.

_______________________

Delta Bourban Academe

Streams of serious Structuralists, hysterical Historicists and groaning Gender Studies Queens are invading tranquil sleepy Ole Miss this year—clearing the ground for juicy Lectures, sexy Seminars & shocking Symposiums with bright young Assistant Professors running amok in the vast coy Cotton Fields of the Modern Language Association.

Deconstructing Young Tyrones & the titillating the new Politics of Down-Low Black Masculinity—delving deeper than skin-deep into the Ghetto Nation & the Hip-Hop Generation, much deeper than those Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond, Segregationist Dayz so well-pictured & identified in the aging Archives of National Geographic Magazines from the pre-Depression Era of the 1920's.

_____________________________________

Faulkner as Dinge Queen

Yes, this year’s Faulkner Conference at Ole Miss is certainly going to be an interesting Journey into the Heart of Darkness, the Land of Bling & the Home of the Shameless!!!

The intrepid courageous Yoknapatawphanists were outdoing themselves this year—the 2011 astute Ole Miss Conference entitled “Faulkner as Dinge Queen” is going to definitely raise Academic Eyebrows across the USA & transform Dred Scott into the New Rap Star of both Harvard & Hollywood…and everything in between!!!

THE SOUND AND THE FURY

______________________

GAY FAULKNER:
THE SOUND AND THE FURY

______________________

Dalton Ames

“he rolled the cigarette
quickly with about two
motions he struck the
match with his thumb”
—William Faulkner,
The Sound and the Fury

On the bridge that day—
Confronting young Dalton Ames
I got had real bad.

He was so handsome—
No wonder Caddy loved him
A perfect young stud.

Refused to touch it—
But Dalton made me do it
Touch his big penis.

The one that Caddy—
Knew so well fucking her nice
Tight juicy pussy.

Shook his head saying—
“Those pretty lips of yours should
Be on a girl’s face.”

Shoving my shocked face—
Down on his straining pistol
Making me suck it.

____________________________

Dwayne Jerome

“If I could have been
his mother lying with
open body lifted laughing,
holding his father with my
hand, refraining, seeing,
watching him die before
he lived.”—William Faulkner,
The Sound and the Fury

If I could only—
Have been Mommy Dearest when
Dwayne’s father came.

Feeling her love-child—
Oozing into existence
With each nice thick squirt.

Dwayne Jerome Jones—
My kid brother dinge lover
Fucking me like her.

How big was Daddy—
Dwayne’s patriarchal prick
Primal squirt of cum?

Dalton Ames’ big dick—
Just as demandingly male
Needing to get off.

Holding Dwayne tight—
Trembling jazz-player penis
His well-hung father.

___________________________

Caddy's Young Lover

“and that I had just
passed out like a girl
but even that didn’t
matter anymore”
—William Faulkner,
The Sound and the Fury

I didn’t tell her—
I didn’t dare tell Caddy
What really happened.

Ames made me suck it—
Dalton Ames’ big veiny dick
Suck it like a girl.

I didn’t want to—
Even tho I really did
And Dalton knew it.

He wanted my lips—
Pouty lips just like Caddy’s
Got it all down there.

That’s why I fainted—
He make me choke on it bad
He made me do it.

And when he shot it—
I swallowed the nasty wad
That’s why I fainted.

__________________________

Dalton's Big Dick

“I didn’t feel anything at all
I felt almost good after all
those days and the nights
with honeysuckle coming up
out of the darkness into
my room trying to sleep”
—William Faulkner,
The Sound and the Fury

I could still taste it—
Dalton Ames’ big fucking dick
I felt like Caddy.

The vein in my neck—
Throbbed & pulsed madly like hers
Now I knew the truth.

The naked uncut—
Primitive young male secret
The thing that drove them.

I got weak in bed—
Just thinking about back then
Swallowing his cum.

I was just jealous—
That’s what it was all about
My bruised Caddy lips.

Dalton knew me well—
I was such a nelly fag
A gay Southerner.

___________________________

True Confession

“all at once she quit
her wrists went lax
yes I can tell him
I can make him believe
anytime I can make him
Caddy”—William Faulkner,
The Sound and the Fury

That’s what Dalton did—
He turned me into Caddy
Then he fucked my lips.

The I asked Caddy—
“Do you really love Dalton?
Love him all the way?”

“Do you suck him off?—
Does he fuck you in the mouth?
Do you swallow it?”

“Yes,” Caddy whispered—
“Just like you did on the bridge.
He likes it that way.”

I was mortified—
I felt so fuckin’ ashamed
My own sister knew.

When she ran away—
I wanted to go with them.
Like Judith & Bon.

____________________________

Caddy Loved Him

“she took my hand
and held it flat against
her throat now say his
name Dalton Ames
I felt the first surge of
blood there it surged
in strong accelerating
beats”—William Faulkner,
The Sound and the Fury

It was the same surge—
Getting faster & faster
Just like Dalton’s dick.

So slow & sluggish—
At first & then picking up
Heart beating faster.

All of Dalton’s strength—
Coming into me in squirts
Squirting thick blood-jets.

Caddy felt it too—
She knew what I got to know
How strong Dalton was.

But also how weak—
He got in the knees with me
Letting me feel it.

Knowing what I was—
Knowing what I needed bad
Some nice Caddy cum.

__________________________

Dalton Mon Amour

“say it again Dalton Ames
her blood surged steadily
beating and beating
against my hand”
—William Faulkner,
The Sound and the Fury

Caddy looked at me—
Soon I’d be there in Harvard
Caught in Shreve’s big arms.

Strong as Dalton Ames—
Canadian comeliness
The New England cold.

How was I to know—
The Sutpen séance come true
Conjoined with the Past?

Henry Sutpen and—
Charles Bon the Beautiful
Speaking with our Tongues.

Jumping off the bridge—
Thinking about Dalton Ames
Knowing I loved him.

I didn’t hate it—
I didn’t hate the Deep South
It was me instead.

_____________________________

Queer Quentin

“Every time any character
gets into a book no matter
how minor, he’s actually
telling his biography.”
—William Faulkner, Faulkner
in the University

Being queer Quentin—
Being queer Henry Sutpen
Queer for Charles Bon.

Living inside them—
Absalom, Sound & Fury
Burlesque Biloxi.

Looking at myself—
Deep South decadent homo
Living with Dwayne.

Just an aging old—
Miss Havisham delta wreck
Miss Rosa old queen.

Dinge déjà vu kid—
My spaz Benjy kid brother
He can’t read a book.

All he can do is—
Let me get him off at night
While we watch TV.

__________________________

Dalton's Ten Inches

“That’s all anyone ever
does, he tells his own
biography, talking about
himself, in a thousand
different terms, but himself.”
—William Faulkner, Faulkner
in the University

So I just sat down—
And didn’t do anything
Just had this image.

Quentin on the bridge—
Young Dalton Ames standing there
Making him do it.

Smoking cigarette—
Grabbing Quentin by the ears
Doing Caddy’s lips.

Big thick petulant—
Pouty adolescent lips
A girl’s pair of lips.

The kind of pretty—
Pussy-willow faggy lips
That needs a big one.

Dalton’s ten inches—
All the way down Quentin’s throat
Making him choke, faint.

__________________________

INTERVIEW WITH FAULKNER

INTERVIEW WITH FAULKNER

“born of necessity, out of a sense
of urgency, an irrepressible
inner compulsion, regardless
of the risks incurred. How
can we linger over books
we feel the author was not
compelled to write, the kind
of books that wound and stab
us, affect us like a disaster,
grieve us deeply, like
being banished into the
forests from everybody.”
—André Bleikasten,
“Faulkner in the Singular,”
Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha

Delta Text & Theory

Between delta text—
And theory, moving back &
Forth like a shuttle.

Testing, questioning—
The text & its many voices
The tense encounters.

The evolving self—
Between a writer & his
Singularity.

The book he lives thru—
Power to shatter clichés
Mississippi texts.

Totally Lost

Totally lost—
Back when I read Absalom
At 20 years old.

And ever since then—
I’ve been exquisitely lost
Again & again.

Like Marquez was—
Peter Handke & Borges
Labyrinthine cast.

I was lost inside—
Absalom, Absalom deep
And couldn’t get out.

Henry Sutpen

Dwarfed like Henry was—
Like Charles Bon not knowing
Who his father was.

Incestuous maze—
Exacerbated, provoked
Drowning in my guilt.

The forbidden love—
That heterosexuals can’t know
Even with sisters.

The don’t ask don’t tell—
Cloistered closet of shame
Cain & Able love.

Ole Miss

Henry at Old Miss—
Bon up from the Big Easy
Going down on him.

“So it’s the gayness—
Not the miscegenation"
That Sutpen hated.

How many fathers—
Rejecting their own sons &
Lesbian daughters?

During Viet Nam—
Not just the Civil War then
But any war-time.

Because Bon Said

“Because” as Bon says—
“I’m the faggot who’s gonna
Suck off your young son.”

Like Dwayne Jerome—
Whose Chicago dinge father
Will never be known.

Except by gay me—
Going down on my brother
His mulatto meat.

Married to the kid—
As surely as midnight cums
And Mandingo goes.

Dinge Queen

Rejected by love—
For being a chicken queen
And a dinge queen too.

That’s why my brother—
Shoots his brains out all the time
With his black Luger.

Like Henry & Bon—
At the Sutpen Plantation
Gate during the war.

Like young Able did—
East of Eden way back then
Sodom & Miss G.

Dinge Fellatio

I was Judith and—
Henry & Clytie as well
Dinge fellatio.

Dwayne was Charles—
Charles Bon the Beautiful
All black ten inches.

Pealing back foreskin—
His pink Narcissus dick-head
His inch-long dick-slit.

When he took a pee—
One stream into the commode
Other on the floor.

Id Sauvage

Such an animal—
A constant boner just like
Benjy Id sauvage.

Totally streaming—
Young ejac—consciousness
Boy-beast with 2 backs.

Constantly fucking—
His own obsessively dinge
Fucking fist of doom.

Driven by hormones—
From Adolescent Dante
To gay disco hell.

Bad Boy Retardo

Always present tense—
Addicted to the Moment
Bad Boy Retardo.

Rereading Faulkner—
All these years later still lost
But differently...

Absalom the Text—
Humid Louisiana nights
Sitting up reading.

Deep South decadence—
Biloxi boyfriend in bed
Dreadlocks, kinky pubes.

Losing Myself

Losing myself in—
His sexy Mississippi
Drawl syrupy-thick.

Black molasses sweet—
Runny as sugar-cane snot
Old Man River kid.

Pascagoula prick—
During spring break on the beach
The Ole Miss Motel.

Unspeakably mine—
Get-away gumbo gulped down
Gulf of Mexico.

Delta Bourbon Nights

Delta bourbon nights—
Getting it as much as he’d
Let me have each time.

Glutton for his groin—
Groaning for my lips some more
Saying he loved me.

But knowing the truth—
His Biloxi girlfriend back
Home waiting for him.

It didn’t last long—
But long enough to hurt bad
Saying with that drawl.

You Can't Have It

“You can’t have it, man—
Not anymore on weekends
I’m getting married.”

I dragged it out for—
As long as I could knowing
It could never last.

Like Gone With the Wind—
Crummy little fantasy
What would Scarlett say?

Probably nothing—
A Yoknapatawpha yawn
A bored Temple smirk.

Chat with Faulkner

“Fuckin’ Jesus christ—
Don’t pull another Truelove
Boner on me, kid.”

“That cow dumpin’ shit—
Down on me out in the field
Delta diarrhea!!!”

“Have the politeness—
Not to poke around too much
Like young Weasel Snopes?”

“Memphis bad enough—
Miss Reba’s whorehouse Temple
Drake’s carrying on.”

Temple Drake

“She aint proud no more—
Alabama Red fucked her
Reamed her out real good.”

“Popeye the pervert—
He made Sanctuary sell...
Pulp fiction saved me.”

“Hoity-toity Lit—
That Signet paperback book
Saved my fuckin’ ass.”

“The NYTimes can—
Go fuck a duck for sure
That’s GFAD...”

Royalty Checks

“That’s how I paid bills—
Royalty checks fit for Queens
Even Dukes do it!!!”

Young Sneaky-Eyes Snopes—
Suddenly shows up outta
The Delta darkness.

Weasel’s young cousin—
Lives there in the Old Frenchman’s
White-Trash Trailer Court.

Weasel’s nervous nose—
Twitching all the time like he’s
A Rat smelling you.

The Snopes Boyz

They bring over chicks—
To entertain Faulkner up
There in his bedroom.

Frederick Karl’s, well—
Close calling William Faulkner
A dirty old man.

Writing for that urge—
To get goodlooking women
Into bed with him.

While that’s going on—
Sneaky-Eyes Snopes gets drunk
Let’s me look at it.

Sneaky-Eyes Snopes

All the Snopes the same—
Smegma grows like mold on cheese
Green cheesy dickheads.

Queering Faulkner is—
Pretty cheesy I admit...
Gets him a Nobel tho...

Temple Drake comes and—
Goes while young cute Weasel Snopes
Be like in the know.

White trash Novelists—
Writing pulp fiction porno
Sanctuary sucks.

Biloxi Bashō

Biloxi Bashō—
This fag haiku travelogue
Down into Deep South.

Sounds despicable—
Right up my schmaltzy alley
Fudge Packer Poet...

Ka-plunk! goes the frog—
Into the bayou darkness
I feel the ripples.

Young naked Pierre—
Diving off the cabin dock
Going ka-plunk! too.

GAY FAULKNER

GAY FAULKNER:
“ABSALOM QUEER QUENTIN”

Queer Quentin

“I dont hate it,” Quentin said
quickly, at once, immediately.
“I dont hate it,” he said.
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

"I don't hate the South"—
“I dont hate the South,” I said.
“No, I dont hate it!”

Shreve holds me tighter—
I’m like shaking all over.
It isn’t the cold.

His slack-jawed young face—
Mine leering lily-white South
That’s what I hate.

Henry there in bed—
Up there in the dark attic
Where Clytie hides him.

Henry in the Attic

“I dont hate it he thought,
panting in the cold air, the
iron New England dark:
I dont I dont! I dont hate
it! I dont hate it!”
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

Miss Rosa drags me—
That lonely moonlit old night
To the Plantation.

Gaunt gothic ruins—
Crumbling down, rotting away
Just like the Deep South.

That’s what I hate—
Seeing Henry giving head
To idiot loins.

Henry going down—
On Jim Bond’s big Negro dick
So desperately.

Southern Faggot Lips

Southern faggot lips—
Needing Charles Bon’s naked
Mulatto penis.

Surely that’s the thing—
The thing Miss Rosa wanted
Me to come & see.

The thing Clytie hides—
Her nelly gay half-brother
Closet case killer.

Who shoots his father—
Evil Colonel Sutpen there
In his Shiloh tent.

Then shoots Bon as well—
When he doesn’t want to play
Dinge ménage-a-trois.

African Kings

“sprung from the loins
of African kings”
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

Surely that’s enough—
To make a Harvard freshman
Moody & depressed?

Knowing that thru me—
Clytemnestra’s dinge secret
Still hides so darkly?

Knowing that thru me—
Eulalia Bon’s handsome black son
He flows thru me now.

Knowing that thru me—
Charles Etienne De Saint
Valery Bon flows.

As surely as Sin—
That night in the dark attic
Sucking off Jim Bond.

Jim Bond (Bon)

“You’ve got one nigger left.
One nigger Sutpen left. Of
course you cant catch him
and you don’t even always
see him and you never will
be able to use him.”
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

All these years later—
Going over the Ledgers,
The closed court records.

Kept tight & secret—
The Willows Home for Unwed
Mothers just like mine.

My mother’s mother—
Down there in Kansas City
Down from Chicago.

High-class Chicago—
Daughter of an Attorney
She gets in Trouble.

Fucks around with a—
Negro saxophone player
In a black jazz band.

She gets pregnant and—
Then sent to the Willows Home
To have her baby.

The Ledger

“It clears the whole ledger,
you can tear all the pages
out and burn them, except
for one thing. And you
know what that is?”
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

My Mommy Dearest—
The court records sealed up fast
Her family shame.

Beautiful Redhead—
Adopted by Walter and
Jenny Larkin then.

While deep in her loins—
Lurks the Negro dinge secret
Hidden from the world.

Amy Jane Larkin—
My mommy dearest mother
Gets married one day.

Not knowing deep down—
Her secret shame that is hers
The lurking Bad Seed.

So I’m born shameless—
Fair-skinned, freckles just like her
I be a White Boy.

Dinge Closet-Case

“But you’ve got him still.
You can hear him at night
sometimes. Don’t you?”
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

But then my brother—
My dinge kid brother gets born
The secret comes out.

Just like with Sutpen—
Dominant Mandingo genes
Make themselves well-known.

Dwayne Jerome Jones—
A beautiful albino
Younger kid brother.

The Only Trouble

The only trouble—
He’s got a huge mulatto
Jet-black dinge Penis.

Everybody’s shocked—
My exquisite kid brother
His black ten inches!!!

My father divorces—
Runs away from my mother
With a divorcee.

Avoiding scandal—
Her parents hide her away
Amy & her kids.

From then on—
We live in a dark Closet
Locked without a Key.

That’s how I grow up—
A dirty white boy inside
A deep dark Secret.

Absalom, Absalom

“And so you know
what I think?”
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

I don’t want to—
I don’t even want to think
About my brother.

But I can’t help it—
I can’t help but stare at it
And want it real bad.

That’s the real closet—
The dinge monster hiding there
In mother’s closet.

The thing the whole town—
Knew about my family
The secret scandal.

It’s hard to keep it—
Secret & in the closet
So jet-black & big.

Dwayne Jerome knew—
Taking showers in gym class
Letting them all see.

Dinge Kid Brother

“Perhaps he hoped for an
answer this time, or
perhaps he merely
paused for emphasis,
since he got no answer.”
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

He knew & they knew—
The faggy wrestling coach knew
Kept him after school.

The phone would ring late—
His girlfriends hot for a date
There at the drive-in.

The word got around—
From the Seventh grade on up
Gym class reveled all.

It was amazing—
Even in the Old Miss dorm
Everybody knew.

I know that I knew—
But kept it in the Closet
Then the bath-tube day.

That’s when I got down—
Did the down-low on him good
I couldn’t help it.

Quentin's Silence

“Quentin did not answer;
evidently Shreve did not
want an answer then.”
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

It was bad enough—
Mulatto mommy dearest
With all her baggage.

It was bad enough—
With Dwayne Jerome her son
His Negro Penis.

It was bad enough—
With me being a Faggot
Her gay oldest son.

But the worse thing was—
Me doing the down-low on
His dinge ten-inch dick.

People shook their heads—
Their Eyeballs ogling for more
My hot kid brother.

Dwayne Jerome like me—
He had no Whitey Boy Shame
He bragged about it.

Dinge Genealogy

“So it took Charles Bon
and his mother to get rid
of old Tom…”
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

Soon Mommy Dearest died—
In a tragic accident
A Mack truck head-on.

Had to pull the plug—
In Biloxi General
The funeral so sad.

That’s when real Scandal—
Came to Town to live it up
Me Executor.

I got the Senate—
The whole apartment house then
Dwayne & me moved in.

The art deco dump—
Streamline moderne aging wreck
Built in 1940.

Remodeled it all—
Rented out the top 3 floors
All twelve apartments.

To nice young Freshmen—
There in that little Southern
College town of mine.

Benjy Boyfriend

“I am older at twenty
than a lot of people who
have died,” Quentin said.
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

He was a retard—
A total child idiot
My teenage Benjy.

He was right outta—
The Sound & The Fury then
Totally insane.

He was my own Jim—
My own Jim Bond black brother
So out there back then.

But he was Compson—
Just as fucked-up as I was
Maybe some more.

I didn’t send him—
Off to the Loony Bin Home
Didn’t have him fixed.

I kept him around—
Because I was a Dinge Queen
I needed it bad.

A ten-inch Penis—
Nice thick licorice & black
With a nice pink head.

Just like Halloween—
Nice Trick or Treat Mandingo
Candy to chew on.

Hippie Sixties

“and more people have
died than have been
twenty-one,” Shreve said.
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

I was Hippie then—
Plenty of sitar music
Sandalwood incense.

Madras curtain sheets—
Hanging down from the windows
Getting stoned a lot.

That’s how I kept him—
Loaded all the fuckin’ time
Cross-eyed & naked.

Getting him off nice—
And easy much as I could
His slobbering drool.

It was just shameful—
Him dropping outta high school
A cute sophomore.

But what else could I do—
They wouldn’t leave him alone
The girlz & voyeurs.

Growing Up Gay

“It began to take shape
in its same curious, light,
gravity-defying attitude—
the once-folded sheet
out of the wisteria
Mississippi summer”
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

Surely I’d lose him—
Special Ed Class was the Pits
He’d just rot in there.

And so he grew up—
Dwayne Jerome my brother
My Dinge Angel Boy.

What else could I do—
What else did I wanna do?
Who to do it for?

And that’s how it came—
Like the mansion darkness
In that doomed old house.

I was like Clytie—
But I was Quentin as well
Henry Sutpen too.

All three of us ghosts—
Living with African kings
Mandingo loinchops.

Art Deco Senate

“Quentin did not answer,
staring at the window,
the cigar smell, the
random blowing of the
fireflies.”
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

Down in the Senate—
The basement floor where we lived
It was nice down there.

Art deco windows—
Glass blocks along the edges
So streamline moderne.

It was like living—
There in some futuristic
Gone architecture.

The Thirties back then—
Was like that with lots of young
Jobless architects.

Not just Empire State—
Or the sleek Chrysler Building
With its swank Sky Room.

But spreading over—
The South & Midwestern states
A Style in Exile.

Bleeding into Now—
From some sci-fi Future Past
Art deco thru Time.

Mississippi Nights

“one last wild crimson
reflection as the house
collapsed and roared
away, and there was
only the sound of the
idiot negro left”
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

I can still smell it—
The smell of wisteria
In the delta dark.

Mississippi night—
Faint smell of hippie hookah
In bed with Dwayne.

If he only knew—
How deep Southern decadence
Grew down in his loins.

If he only knew—
The long slave journey back home
Each time we make love.

If he only knew—
The dinge queen brotherly love
I have for him now.

My Benjy Bad Boy—
Giving me his Mandingo
Every fuckin’ day.

Once in the Morning—
Then once again at High Noon
Finally at Midnight.

GAY FAULKNER II

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.