SNOPES
“star-spawn and hieroglyph,
the fierce white dying rose,
then gradual speeding up
and into slack-flood’s coronal
of nympholept noon”—William
Faulkner, “The Long Summer,”
The Hamlet
______________________
The Poker Game
Weasel and Pretty Boy Snopes
Snake Lips
Ike Snopes
Huckleberry Finn Snopes
Adonis Snopes
Carnivàle Snopes
New Orleans Snopes
Creole Snopes
Young Popeye
_________________________
The Poker Game
faulkner ain’t got no—
secrets about nobody
he tells everything.
faulkner’s got no sense—
no sense about reticence
he ain’t shy about things.
he’s got no instinct—
for being gentlemanly
polite & discrete.
each time he tells it—
the stories get more & more
tres touché risqué.
flem snopes & his gang—
those boyz gots lots more finesse
for keeping secrets.
it’s kinda sorta—
like playin’ a poker game
on a riverboat.
lotsa chic card-sharks—
with cool staid poker faces
smart bluffing gamblers.
they know how to play—
never revealing their hands
their poker faces.
faulkner’s pretty good—
playin’ the reader game too
he’s nobody’s fool.
each story’s a game—
all of them believable
all seemingly true.
mississippi nights—
the delta queen riverboat
antebellum times.
Weasel and Pretty Boy Snopes
“How long does it take
you to write a book?
Only a hack, Faulkner
replied, can answer
that question.”
—Ernest V. Trueblood,
Delta Days and Delta Nights,
Jackson: University of
Mississippi Press, 2007
Weasel Snopes is precocious—same with his twin brother Pretty Boy Snopes—they both take after their child-idiot father Ike Snopes—the infamous Ike Snopes of The Hamlet—the gimpy, harelipped child-idiot problem-boy of Yoknapatawpha County—Ike this problem-boy everybody knew about—but nobody much wanted to talk about it—Weasel just shrugs—he doesn’t care—neither does Pretty Boy—both of them are pretty normal most of the time—except for one thing…
The Snopes boys hang around Rowan Oaks—they do odd jobs for Mister Bill—they get the best whiskey for him—they take trips up to Memphis every month or so—they’re both kinda like Virgil and Fonzo Snopes—those crazy well-known pair of boys in Miss Reba’s whorehouse outta Faulkner’s Sanctuary—way back when Popeye and Red—were having a good time with Temple Drake in bed.
Weasel Snopes’ twin brother Pretty Boy Snopes—he’s the prettiest boy in Yoknapatawpha County & he knows it too—he’s a vain little cocky showoff—just like his twin brother Weasel—he’s got slick jet-black hair—carefully greased back into a sexy ducktail—looks kinda like a cute sixteen-year-old Elvis Presley—with those same wiggly, sexy Elvis the Pelvis hips—plus a thin wasp-like waist—and a nice muscular physique that sure does catch the ogling eyeballs of all the Memphis whores—and the Big Easy queens during Mardi Gras too.
Weasel Snopes is just the opposite—an ugly ratty dishpan-blonde with pale white skin—almost as pale as an albino snake—the spitting image of his father Ike—right down to every inch of his big touchy Tallahatchie you-know-what—which just won’t quit once it gets going—both boys so very intense and nervous—like all the young Snopesian spawn and slacker badboyz down there in delta country…
That’s the only time I get to see them—is late at night when Mister Bill and me are working in the study—going over some drafts and typing manuscripts—while his Mississippi mastermind muse—full of Pascagoula Gulf breeze calm and whiskey coolness—gently opines away in the delta night—that’s when things really get going good at Rowan Oaks—about midnight when he gets juiced—and begins to commune with the Living Dead…
Some people say he communes too much—but that’s alright—who’s to say how much is too much—maybe too much still ain’t good enough if you know what I mean—that’s where the Snopes boyz came in—Weasel and Pretty Boy know better than anybody how much of a good thing isn’t enough…
Some say Faulkner is a dirty old man—but that’s alright—all the young dirty white boys in Jefferson think the same way—at least Weasel and Pretty Boy think that way most of time—they’re both avid devotees of Mr. Bill’s imaginative stories—they don’t read much and for all I know they don’t even know how to read—they’re just your typical trailer-trash dirty white boys—sitting around bored watching TV a lot—and driving around in their beat-up Camero—up to Memphis & back again every once in awhile.
They come by once or twice a week—with the best whiskey money can buy—and something to smoke—to keep Mr. Bill’s imagination going the way it gets going—it kinda takes some time to get used to it—the way the three of them have this delta repertoire amongst themselves—they love to get him started and get him in the mood—it’s awfully hard trying to keep up him—but I do the best we can—typing away into the night—his storytelling so intense once it gets going—like the Snopes boyz & everything else…
Faulkner sayz he doesn’t “see or read” anything anymore—he just “listens” to the Voice of Yoknapatawpha late at night—the Voice tells him stories that come into his head—I sit there typing away—I’m a pretty good dictation queen by now—while Weasel & Pretty Boy kick back & listen—laughing & saying something funny now & then—egging Mr. Bill on & keeping the storyline moving at a fast clip—you gotta be fast tho to get it down quick.
The Snopes boyz are kinda kinky like their dad Ike—they’re both in love with themselves like all the Snopes—a couple of young moody Mississippi boyz—right outta rural youngmale antebellum times—the new breed of Snopes taking over from the plantation planter aristocrats—the old dying delta bourbon ruling class—they both live with girlfriends down there in the Yazoo Trailer Court—each with a couple of kids already—common law marriages being the deal around here—all of Yoknapatawpha County’s that way—one vast Snake Pit of seething Snopesian misspent desires & bored young people hanging around in the humid delta night.
Both boyz are deadbeat dads—and like all the Snopes males, they’re extremely prolific and seminal at it—pushing the population of Jefferson into one big breeder Snopesville USA—full of the usual murder, mayhem & depravity stories making the headlines in The Times-Picayune—it’s a real gridlock down here of broken hearts and desultory desires—underneath the same old Spanish moss and gnarled old magnolias—all that young male energy being squandered and going to waste…
At least that’s what I think—but who am I to say—I’m just a naïve college kid intruder—a naïve young interloper skulking down here in the background of the decadent depths of the delta—Yoknapatawpha ruled by a secretive Big Black Anaconda Snake—a writhing Snopesian Creature From the Black Lagoon—“Snake Lips” the Mississippi writer from the world of the past—much older than the one I’m used to over there at Ole Miss—a strange primeval world of ancient, gnarly cypress stumps & moody whiskey nights—older than the dark Snake-Eye touch of old swampy Voodoo Queens—older than just about anything I know about—except the way Faulkner looks at me sometimes—when he pauses & gives me a second to catch up with his story…
Snake Lips
“Relations with his father
grew steadily more difficult
as Billy reached adolescence.
Murray called him “Snake Lips,”
a dig at his Butler features”
—Nicholas Fargnoili & Michael
Golay, William Faulkner
murry sneered at him—
didn’t much like his own son
called him “Snake Lips.”
biographers say—
that’s cause bill had his mother’s
butler slim features.
he was short & slight—
not like jack his young brother
who looked like his dad.
jack had that “falkner”—
tall, bulky & florid build
butch & masculine.
murry was rough neck—
liked to hunt, fish, get drunk,
his wife hated it.
he was a failure—
an inebriate loser,
bumbling dumb gambler.
loved western novels—
adventure stories, bird dogs,
hunting, fishing, guns.
bluff, liquorish, livid—
mississippi outdoorsman,
the young colonel’s son.
maud butler his wife—
just the opposite person
despised his drinking.
but that’s not really—
the whole story to be told
it’s lots more “snaky.”
she loved reading books—
billy her dear favorite,
sensed his genius.
tolerated it—
his strange eccentricities,
his writerly ways
she sensed someday that—
he’d be a well-known writer,
which is what happened.
the family tree—
violent propensities,
anger, listlessness.
but his father sensed—
there was something queer about
his young snaky son.
it wasn’t just his—
“snaky lips” that raised eyebrows
he spooked the horses.
the livery stable—
his black “falkner” cousins &
shadow family knew.
the lure of horses—
young snopesian horse-trading,
that his father knew.
faulkner’s snaky lips—
pensively perverse &
strangely seductive.
like quentin compson’s—
moody, pouty, petulant,
lovely caddy lips.
dalton ames knew it—
philip avery stone knew
and so did spratling.
sherwood anderson—
tennessee williams &
shegog sensed it too.
faulkner’s snaky lips—
right outta eden’s garden
adam & eve knew.
the nervous, snaky—
trembling, shameless, snaky lips
cain & able knew.
incestuous lips—
forbidden, east of eden
queenly sutpen lips.
faulkner’s forked-tongue lips—
snaky, genital “snake lips,”
sulky, southern lips.
lips of a writer—
pursed on the verge of despair,
piqued by paradise.
black & blue bruised lips—
insolent dixie hot lips,
snively, snotty lips.
tight, thin, cruel lips—
puffy, pouty, protruding
ingenious lips.
literary lips—
it ran in the family
on his mother’s side.
Ike Snopes
“Ike Snopes was simply
an interesting human being
with man’s normal natural
feelings, his baseness
which man fights against…”
—William Faulkner,
Faulkner in the University,
ed. Blotner-Gwynn,
Charlottesville: University
of Virginia Press, 1995
Ike Snopes—bovine beauty boy—ultimate other—ultimate outsider even to himself—outside of time—outside of Mississippi—way out there somewhere—Ike not struggling very hard—to get back home either—outside all the way and never coming back—outside of pathos—beyond lovely verisimilitudes of character, plot, denouement—inarticulate zoophilic boy—zip-a-dee-doo-dah happy kid—lacking critical insight and routine literary cool—no political agenda—jettisoned by Faulkner into nothingness—Sartre’s “I’m outside time” no help at all—that’s for rubes and suckers of American Lit—no feverish imagination or lecherous desires—no need to luxuriate in Time—no need for narrative power or thrilling escape to freedom—no need for any Slavocracy to ego-gratification—no future to be ruined—voiceless-cipher perfect youth—not vindictive whimsical scheming—no need for deranged performances or adolescent shame—his adult manhood would never arrive—Ike would remain in teenage pulp fiction paradise forever—no need to turn pages or watch movies—the equation of himself and how he was—silenced, acquiescent, muzzled—no prefaces, no epilogues, no high school reunions—the only reunion he’ll ever know—stage-managed by Faulkner as a joke in a barn—no need to escape illness, decay, confinement, anonymity—inhabiting a body with hands and feet going nowhere fast—no need for fabulation—no need for family or wife—his sole source of love—a cow…
Huckleberry Finn Snopes
“But then I stopped
reading as a reader
and began to read
as a writer”—Toni
Morrison, Playing in
the Dark: Whiteness &
the Literary Imagination
Huckleberry Finn Snopes was fond of showing off to the tourists—there at the Mark Twain Tourist Center on the banks of the muddy Mississippi River—celebrating his savvy innocence and youngmale beauty—by pulling down his pants and saying—“This here is my Slave Jim—isn’t he nice, big, black and beautiful?”—Well, it wasn’t exactly your typical tourist trap routine—not exactly what your usual Mark Twain fan would expect—but the tourist families and kids got the point pretty quick—rushing off to the tour bus to escape as fast as they could—voicing polite tittering embarrassments—about Mark Twain the great writer—and that young cute innocent teenage Huck Finn—with that huge Jurassic joint down between Jim’s carnival sideshow legs—Huck Finn the Boy and Jim the Man—comic satirical street-smart Twain critique—quickly dispelling bourgeois yearnings for any whitey forgiveness—any guilt-feelings about slavery and antebellum jive—Jim changing the direction of the narrative completely—no need to enter the mouth of the Ohio River—no need to pass into Freedom Land anymore—just one look at “Jim” told the whole story—“Come on, Huck honey, get back on the raft,” lily-white half-wit Huckleberry Finn Snopes with his mulatto yardstick meat of black power—signed, sealed and delivered Mandingo Message from the African gods—truant Huck Finn shrug and Tom Sawyer smirk—Jim subjected to endless humiliation, torment, persecution—only to respond with boundless love and limitless compassion—Huck and Jim two sides of the same coin—one side Jim the specter of enslavement—the other Huck anodyne American witness—how can there be one without the other?
Adonis Snopes
“Does Faulkner’s Absalom,
Absalom after its protracted
search for telling African blood,
leave us with a image of snow
and the eradication of race?
Not quite.”—Toni Morrison,
Playing in the Dark: Whiteness
and the Literary Imagination
Adonis Snopes—young black Adonis freshman—editor on the Delta—one of the first African-American students on campus—totally alive and wired—inheritor of the blood of African kings—while I was cold aloof as “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”—blinded by prejudice Hemingway butch—blinded by impenetrable inarticulate whiteness—worse than Henry Sutpen at Ole Miss—Allen Hall and American Lit in the middle of Whiteyville—my English classes and all that “othering” mindset—Adonis Snopes freshman outsider—black kid in a Whiteyville deep south university—English Department all white and no blacks—surrounded by estranging whitey Literature—whitey poetry in the library stacks—fetishizing seething sixties Academe—he was a Black Adonis English major—there in the heart of the Whiteyville USA—no Langston Hughes, Richard Bruce Nugent, Countee Cullen, Zora Neal Hurston—no Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Ishmael Reed, Charles Johnson, Maya Angelou, August Wilson, Richard Wright, Wanda Coleman—young Adonis Snopes knocking on my dormitory door—that night both of us arriving at an understanding—about Harlem Renaissance and a few other things…
Carnivàle Snopes
—for Karl Van Vechten
I was watching Carnivàle the other night—one of those first episodes—when Ben Hawkins the young runaway clairvoyant kid—wakes up in Professor Lodz's trailer—stumbling down the stairs—wearing the Bearded Lady's kimono—suddenly finding himself in another world—the world of Carnivàle on the road back in the '30s—magic realism dished out slowly episode after episode—his weird Great Depression bildungsroman on a weekly basis—full of Dust Bowl gritty romance—occult struggle between good evil and all that—thinking to myself—Carnivàle never made it down South—but then I realized that Carnivàle was already down there—and had been down there for a long time—while HBO's Carnivàle had been filmed in Santa Clarita and other CA locations—a fictitious Midwestern Thirties landscape—funny how magic realism pops up in American places all over the country back then—especially during rough times or before Lent in New Orleans—as if fabulation were the only way out—or maybe just the opposite—fabulation as the "once upon a time" imaginative way-back-in?
New Orleans Snopes
“The concept of freedom
did not emerge as a vacuum.
Nothing highlighted freedom—
if it did not in fact create it—
like slavery.”—Toni Morrison,
Playing in the Dark: Whiteness
and the Literary Imagination
New Orleans Snopes—he was like New Orleans the Big Easy—potpourri playground for the Creole imagination—fabricated brew of darkness, otherness, alarm and desire—Louisiana counterpoint to freedom—suppressed repressed slavery darkness—mirrored, exorcised, reified Creole persona—subterranean subtextual American Lit in the making—New Orleans Snopes—young carefree kid—not particularly self-conscious about it—his long Spanish French Haitian Free Black Slave inheritance—kept boy of a notable Southern oil millionaire—his boyhood spent in the arms of a Delta Bourbon New South aristocrat—hardly New Yorker litterateur stuff—hardly Manhattan suave sophisticated erudite story—just Biloxi bad boy made good—Mardi Gras boyfriend—rich sugar daddy romancing the shadow—Nubian young prince named in his will—what will he do now with the millions—meanwhile driving down Canal in a big black limo—enjoying the Big Easy ambience—driving across Lake Pontchartrain—named after Louis Phélypeaux—Comte de Pontchartrain—French Minister of the Marine—Chancellor of France—and Minister of Finance…
Creole Snopes
“A sullen darkness
now hovered above us”
—Edgar Allan Poe,
The Narrative of
Arthur Gordon Pym
Young Creole Snopes was proud and vain—shamelessly unashamed—letting me see his Snopes family heritage—his sullen Creole family jewels—dark moody youngman who lived in the French Quarter—meeting him one night at Lafitte’s during Mardi Gras—pale high yellow octoroon haughty kid—with lots of bad attitude and a chip on his shoulder a mile long—dressed up as a French harlequin clown—bright-orange buzz-cut bouffant—his inexhaustibly sluggish brown eyes—stoic and slow as the Mississippi River nearby—romancing all the cute blue-eyed white-boy sailors—fighting over the same one in the bathroom—until we both shrugged and laughed—going home with each other for a drink—and a view from his Vieux Carré balcony—gazing down on the seething rude mob of drunk fat-assed Carnivàle white-trash tourists—each Mardi Gras another sad history lesson and blank page scrawled with lewd, senseless hangovers—rediscovering the American Dream down South—or was it a Dixie Nightmare—Mardi Gras with its way of letting it all hang out—mean cynical cops on huge horses—trolling the bottom-fish for drunks and louche troublemakers—while the streets flowed with liquor and love gone bad—or was it good—or did it make any difference—especially late at night during the warm evenings—when Port au Prince diabolism and voodoo hoodoo drums—had a way of weaseling their way into my brain—making me weak in the knees—checking out his cute “I Walked With a Zombie” curves—as he slipped into a more comfortable pink and purple kimono—all smooth and silky with flowing gardenias down to his belly-button—worshipping him like Sandra Dee did in the cane field—tall lanky teenage nude Darby Jones—standing at the View Carré Crossroads—his eyes rolled back in his head—Sandra Dee down on her knees—feeling the sublime terror of his smooth mandingo zombie skin—as he leans back against his wrought-iron balcony—oozing curly-cue smoke-rings down thru his nostrils into my face—cigarette-smoke blown from his bored pursed lips—as I worshipped him above the moiling crowds.
Young Popeye
“Give it to me”
—Temple Drake to Popeye,
William Faulkner, Sanctuary
Young Popeye loaned me his car—it was a big black Cadillac—a ’59 beat-up old road hog—riding down the highway that night—a lot of old heavy-metal going nowhere fast—even so it still kinda had lots of class—those rakish tits up front—those garish faded fins whooshing in the back—sleek old shark fins hissing into the night—the windows rolled down—smelling the swamp night stink—driving slowly down to Frenchman’s Bend—Butch Broussard on my mind—the radio turned down low…
“star-spawn and hieroglyph,
the fierce white dying rose,
then gradual speeding up
and into slack-flood’s coronal
of nympholept noon”—William
Faulkner, “The Long Summer,”
The Hamlet
______________________
The Poker Game
Weasel and Pretty Boy Snopes
Snake Lips
Ike Snopes
Huckleberry Finn Snopes
Adonis Snopes
Carnivàle Snopes
New Orleans Snopes
Creole Snopes
Young Popeye
_________________________
The Poker Game
faulkner ain’t got no—
secrets about nobody
he tells everything.
faulkner’s got no sense—
no sense about reticence
he ain’t shy about things.
he’s got no instinct—
for being gentlemanly
polite & discrete.
each time he tells it—
the stories get more & more
tres touché risqué.
flem snopes & his gang—
those boyz gots lots more finesse
for keeping secrets.
it’s kinda sorta—
like playin’ a poker game
on a riverboat.
lotsa chic card-sharks—
with cool staid poker faces
smart bluffing gamblers.
they know how to play—
never revealing their hands
their poker faces.
faulkner’s pretty good—
playin’ the reader game too
he’s nobody’s fool.
each story’s a game—
all of them believable
all seemingly true.
mississippi nights—
the delta queen riverboat
antebellum times.
Weasel and Pretty Boy Snopes
“How long does it take
you to write a book?
Only a hack, Faulkner
replied, can answer
that question.”
—Ernest V. Trueblood,
Delta Days and Delta Nights,
Jackson: University of
Mississippi Press, 2007
Weasel Snopes is precocious—same with his twin brother Pretty Boy Snopes—they both take after their child-idiot father Ike Snopes—the infamous Ike Snopes of The Hamlet—the gimpy, harelipped child-idiot problem-boy of Yoknapatawpha County—Ike this problem-boy everybody knew about—but nobody much wanted to talk about it—Weasel just shrugs—he doesn’t care—neither does Pretty Boy—both of them are pretty normal most of the time—except for one thing…
The Snopes boys hang around Rowan Oaks—they do odd jobs for Mister Bill—they get the best whiskey for him—they take trips up to Memphis every month or so—they’re both kinda like Virgil and Fonzo Snopes—those crazy well-known pair of boys in Miss Reba’s whorehouse outta Faulkner’s Sanctuary—way back when Popeye and Red—were having a good time with Temple Drake in bed.
Weasel Snopes’ twin brother Pretty Boy Snopes—he’s the prettiest boy in Yoknapatawpha County & he knows it too—he’s a vain little cocky showoff—just like his twin brother Weasel—he’s got slick jet-black hair—carefully greased back into a sexy ducktail—looks kinda like a cute sixteen-year-old Elvis Presley—with those same wiggly, sexy Elvis the Pelvis hips—plus a thin wasp-like waist—and a nice muscular physique that sure does catch the ogling eyeballs of all the Memphis whores—and the Big Easy queens during Mardi Gras too.
Weasel Snopes is just the opposite—an ugly ratty dishpan-blonde with pale white skin—almost as pale as an albino snake—the spitting image of his father Ike—right down to every inch of his big touchy Tallahatchie you-know-what—which just won’t quit once it gets going—both boys so very intense and nervous—like all the young Snopesian spawn and slacker badboyz down there in delta country…
That’s the only time I get to see them—is late at night when Mister Bill and me are working in the study—going over some drafts and typing manuscripts—while his Mississippi mastermind muse—full of Pascagoula Gulf breeze calm and whiskey coolness—gently opines away in the delta night—that’s when things really get going good at Rowan Oaks—about midnight when he gets juiced—and begins to commune with the Living Dead…
Some people say he communes too much—but that’s alright—who’s to say how much is too much—maybe too much still ain’t good enough if you know what I mean—that’s where the Snopes boyz came in—Weasel and Pretty Boy know better than anybody how much of a good thing isn’t enough…
Some say Faulkner is a dirty old man—but that’s alright—all the young dirty white boys in Jefferson think the same way—at least Weasel and Pretty Boy think that way most of time—they’re both avid devotees of Mr. Bill’s imaginative stories—they don’t read much and for all I know they don’t even know how to read—they’re just your typical trailer-trash dirty white boys—sitting around bored watching TV a lot—and driving around in their beat-up Camero—up to Memphis & back again every once in awhile.
They come by once or twice a week—with the best whiskey money can buy—and something to smoke—to keep Mr. Bill’s imagination going the way it gets going—it kinda takes some time to get used to it—the way the three of them have this delta repertoire amongst themselves—they love to get him started and get him in the mood—it’s awfully hard trying to keep up him—but I do the best we can—typing away into the night—his storytelling so intense once it gets going—like the Snopes boyz & everything else…
Faulkner sayz he doesn’t “see or read” anything anymore—he just “listens” to the Voice of Yoknapatawpha late at night—the Voice tells him stories that come into his head—I sit there typing away—I’m a pretty good dictation queen by now—while Weasel & Pretty Boy kick back & listen—laughing & saying something funny now & then—egging Mr. Bill on & keeping the storyline moving at a fast clip—you gotta be fast tho to get it down quick.
The Snopes boyz are kinda kinky like their dad Ike—they’re both in love with themselves like all the Snopes—a couple of young moody Mississippi boyz—right outta rural youngmale antebellum times—the new breed of Snopes taking over from the plantation planter aristocrats—the old dying delta bourbon ruling class—they both live with girlfriends down there in the Yazoo Trailer Court—each with a couple of kids already—common law marriages being the deal around here—all of Yoknapatawpha County’s that way—one vast Snake Pit of seething Snopesian misspent desires & bored young people hanging around in the humid delta night.
Both boyz are deadbeat dads—and like all the Snopes males, they’re extremely prolific and seminal at it—pushing the population of Jefferson into one big breeder Snopesville USA—full of the usual murder, mayhem & depravity stories making the headlines in The Times-Picayune—it’s a real gridlock down here of broken hearts and desultory desires—underneath the same old Spanish moss and gnarled old magnolias—all that young male energy being squandered and going to waste…
At least that’s what I think—but who am I to say—I’m just a naïve college kid intruder—a naïve young interloper skulking down here in the background of the decadent depths of the delta—Yoknapatawpha ruled by a secretive Big Black Anaconda Snake—a writhing Snopesian Creature From the Black Lagoon—“Snake Lips” the Mississippi writer from the world of the past—much older than the one I’m used to over there at Ole Miss—a strange primeval world of ancient, gnarly cypress stumps & moody whiskey nights—older than the dark Snake-Eye touch of old swampy Voodoo Queens—older than just about anything I know about—except the way Faulkner looks at me sometimes—when he pauses & gives me a second to catch up with his story…
Snake Lips
“Relations with his father
grew steadily more difficult
as Billy reached adolescence.
Murray called him “Snake Lips,”
a dig at his Butler features”
—Nicholas Fargnoili & Michael
Golay, William Faulkner
murry sneered at him—
didn’t much like his own son
called him “Snake Lips.”
biographers say—
that’s cause bill had his mother’s
butler slim features.
he was short & slight—
not like jack his young brother
who looked like his dad.
jack had that “falkner”—
tall, bulky & florid build
butch & masculine.
murry was rough neck—
liked to hunt, fish, get drunk,
his wife hated it.
he was a failure—
an inebriate loser,
bumbling dumb gambler.
loved western novels—
adventure stories, bird dogs,
hunting, fishing, guns.
bluff, liquorish, livid—
mississippi outdoorsman,
the young colonel’s son.
maud butler his wife—
just the opposite person
despised his drinking.
but that’s not really—
the whole story to be told
it’s lots more “snaky.”
she loved reading books—
billy her dear favorite,
sensed his genius.
tolerated it—
his strange eccentricities,
his writerly ways
she sensed someday that—
he’d be a well-known writer,
which is what happened.
the family tree—
violent propensities,
anger, listlessness.
but his father sensed—
there was something queer about
his young snaky son.
it wasn’t just his—
“snaky lips” that raised eyebrows
he spooked the horses.
the livery stable—
his black “falkner” cousins &
shadow family knew.
the lure of horses—
young snopesian horse-trading,
that his father knew.
faulkner’s snaky lips—
pensively perverse &
strangely seductive.
like quentin compson’s—
moody, pouty, petulant,
lovely caddy lips.
dalton ames knew it—
philip avery stone knew
and so did spratling.
sherwood anderson—
tennessee williams &
shegog sensed it too.
faulkner’s snaky lips—
right outta eden’s garden
adam & eve knew.
the nervous, snaky—
trembling, shameless, snaky lips
cain & able knew.
incestuous lips—
forbidden, east of eden
queenly sutpen lips.
faulkner’s forked-tongue lips—
snaky, genital “snake lips,”
sulky, southern lips.
lips of a writer—
pursed on the verge of despair,
piqued by paradise.
black & blue bruised lips—
insolent dixie hot lips,
snively, snotty lips.
tight, thin, cruel lips—
puffy, pouty, protruding
ingenious lips.
literary lips—
it ran in the family
on his mother’s side.
Ike Snopes
“Ike Snopes was simply
an interesting human being
with man’s normal natural
feelings, his baseness
which man fights against…”
—William Faulkner,
Faulkner in the University,
ed. Blotner-Gwynn,
Charlottesville: University
of Virginia Press, 1995
Ike Snopes—bovine beauty boy—ultimate other—ultimate outsider even to himself—outside of time—outside of Mississippi—way out there somewhere—Ike not struggling very hard—to get back home either—outside all the way and never coming back—outside of pathos—beyond lovely verisimilitudes of character, plot, denouement—inarticulate zoophilic boy—zip-a-dee-doo-dah happy kid—lacking critical insight and routine literary cool—no political agenda—jettisoned by Faulkner into nothingness—Sartre’s “I’m outside time” no help at all—that’s for rubes and suckers of American Lit—no feverish imagination or lecherous desires—no need to luxuriate in Time—no need for narrative power or thrilling escape to freedom—no need for any Slavocracy to ego-gratification—no future to be ruined—voiceless-cipher perfect youth—not vindictive whimsical scheming—no need for deranged performances or adolescent shame—his adult manhood would never arrive—Ike would remain in teenage pulp fiction paradise forever—no need to turn pages or watch movies—the equation of himself and how he was—silenced, acquiescent, muzzled—no prefaces, no epilogues, no high school reunions—the only reunion he’ll ever know—stage-managed by Faulkner as a joke in a barn—no need to escape illness, decay, confinement, anonymity—inhabiting a body with hands and feet going nowhere fast—no need for fabulation—no need for family or wife—his sole source of love—a cow…
Huckleberry Finn Snopes
“But then I stopped
reading as a reader
and began to read
as a writer”—Toni
Morrison, Playing in
the Dark: Whiteness &
the Literary Imagination
Huckleberry Finn Snopes was fond of showing off to the tourists—there at the Mark Twain Tourist Center on the banks of the muddy Mississippi River—celebrating his savvy innocence and youngmale beauty—by pulling down his pants and saying—“This here is my Slave Jim—isn’t he nice, big, black and beautiful?”—Well, it wasn’t exactly your typical tourist trap routine—not exactly what your usual Mark Twain fan would expect—but the tourist families and kids got the point pretty quick—rushing off to the tour bus to escape as fast as they could—voicing polite tittering embarrassments—about Mark Twain the great writer—and that young cute innocent teenage Huck Finn—with that huge Jurassic joint down between Jim’s carnival sideshow legs—Huck Finn the Boy and Jim the Man—comic satirical street-smart Twain critique—quickly dispelling bourgeois yearnings for any whitey forgiveness—any guilt-feelings about slavery and antebellum jive—Jim changing the direction of the narrative completely—no need to enter the mouth of the Ohio River—no need to pass into Freedom Land anymore—just one look at “Jim” told the whole story—“Come on, Huck honey, get back on the raft,” lily-white half-wit Huckleberry Finn Snopes with his mulatto yardstick meat of black power—signed, sealed and delivered Mandingo Message from the African gods—truant Huck Finn shrug and Tom Sawyer smirk—Jim subjected to endless humiliation, torment, persecution—only to respond with boundless love and limitless compassion—Huck and Jim two sides of the same coin—one side Jim the specter of enslavement—the other Huck anodyne American witness—how can there be one without the other?
Adonis Snopes
“Does Faulkner’s Absalom,
Absalom after its protracted
search for telling African blood,
leave us with a image of snow
and the eradication of race?
Not quite.”—Toni Morrison,
Playing in the Dark: Whiteness
and the Literary Imagination
Adonis Snopes—young black Adonis freshman—editor on the Delta—one of the first African-American students on campus—totally alive and wired—inheritor of the blood of African kings—while I was cold aloof as “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”—blinded by prejudice Hemingway butch—blinded by impenetrable inarticulate whiteness—worse than Henry Sutpen at Ole Miss—Allen Hall and American Lit in the middle of Whiteyville—my English classes and all that “othering” mindset—Adonis Snopes freshman outsider—black kid in a Whiteyville deep south university—English Department all white and no blacks—surrounded by estranging whitey Literature—whitey poetry in the library stacks—fetishizing seething sixties Academe—he was a Black Adonis English major—there in the heart of the Whiteyville USA—no Langston Hughes, Richard Bruce Nugent, Countee Cullen, Zora Neal Hurston—no Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Ishmael Reed, Charles Johnson, Maya Angelou, August Wilson, Richard Wright, Wanda Coleman—young Adonis Snopes knocking on my dormitory door—that night both of us arriving at an understanding—about Harlem Renaissance and a few other things…
Carnivàle Snopes
—for Karl Van Vechten
I was watching Carnivàle the other night—one of those first episodes—when Ben Hawkins the young runaway clairvoyant kid—wakes up in Professor Lodz's trailer—stumbling down the stairs—wearing the Bearded Lady's kimono—suddenly finding himself in another world—the world of Carnivàle on the road back in the '30s—magic realism dished out slowly episode after episode—his weird Great Depression bildungsroman on a weekly basis—full of Dust Bowl gritty romance—occult struggle between good evil and all that—thinking to myself—Carnivàle never made it down South—but then I realized that Carnivàle was already down there—and had been down there for a long time—while HBO's Carnivàle had been filmed in Santa Clarita and other CA locations—a fictitious Midwestern Thirties landscape—funny how magic realism pops up in American places all over the country back then—especially during rough times or before Lent in New Orleans—as if fabulation were the only way out—or maybe just the opposite—fabulation as the "once upon a time" imaginative way-back-in?
New Orleans Snopes
“The concept of freedom
did not emerge as a vacuum.
Nothing highlighted freedom—
if it did not in fact create it—
like slavery.”—Toni Morrison,
Playing in the Dark: Whiteness
and the Literary Imagination
New Orleans Snopes—he was like New Orleans the Big Easy—potpourri playground for the Creole imagination—fabricated brew of darkness, otherness, alarm and desire—Louisiana counterpoint to freedom—suppressed repressed slavery darkness—mirrored, exorcised, reified Creole persona—subterranean subtextual American Lit in the making—New Orleans Snopes—young carefree kid—not particularly self-conscious about it—his long Spanish French Haitian Free Black Slave inheritance—kept boy of a notable Southern oil millionaire—his boyhood spent in the arms of a Delta Bourbon New South aristocrat—hardly New Yorker litterateur stuff—hardly Manhattan suave sophisticated erudite story—just Biloxi bad boy made good—Mardi Gras boyfriend—rich sugar daddy romancing the shadow—Nubian young prince named in his will—what will he do now with the millions—meanwhile driving down Canal in a big black limo—enjoying the Big Easy ambience—driving across Lake Pontchartrain—named after Louis Phélypeaux—Comte de Pontchartrain—French Minister of the Marine—Chancellor of France—and Minister of Finance…
Creole Snopes
“A sullen darkness
now hovered above us”
—Edgar Allan Poe,
The Narrative of
Arthur Gordon Pym
Young Creole Snopes was proud and vain—shamelessly unashamed—letting me see his Snopes family heritage—his sullen Creole family jewels—dark moody youngman who lived in the French Quarter—meeting him one night at Lafitte’s during Mardi Gras—pale high yellow octoroon haughty kid—with lots of bad attitude and a chip on his shoulder a mile long—dressed up as a French harlequin clown—bright-orange buzz-cut bouffant—his inexhaustibly sluggish brown eyes—stoic and slow as the Mississippi River nearby—romancing all the cute blue-eyed white-boy sailors—fighting over the same one in the bathroom—until we both shrugged and laughed—going home with each other for a drink—and a view from his Vieux Carré balcony—gazing down on the seething rude mob of drunk fat-assed Carnivàle white-trash tourists—each Mardi Gras another sad history lesson and blank page scrawled with lewd, senseless hangovers—rediscovering the American Dream down South—or was it a Dixie Nightmare—Mardi Gras with its way of letting it all hang out—mean cynical cops on huge horses—trolling the bottom-fish for drunks and louche troublemakers—while the streets flowed with liquor and love gone bad—or was it good—or did it make any difference—especially late at night during the warm evenings—when Port au Prince diabolism and voodoo hoodoo drums—had a way of weaseling their way into my brain—making me weak in the knees—checking out his cute “I Walked With a Zombie” curves—as he slipped into a more comfortable pink and purple kimono—all smooth and silky with flowing gardenias down to his belly-button—worshipping him like Sandra Dee did in the cane field—tall lanky teenage nude Darby Jones—standing at the View Carré Crossroads—his eyes rolled back in his head—Sandra Dee down on her knees—feeling the sublime terror of his smooth mandingo zombie skin—as he leans back against his wrought-iron balcony—oozing curly-cue smoke-rings down thru his nostrils into my face—cigarette-smoke blown from his bored pursed lips—as I worshipped him above the moiling crowds.
Young Popeye
“Give it to me”
—Temple Drake to Popeye,
William Faulkner, Sanctuary
Young Popeye loaned me his car—it was a big black Cadillac—a ’59 beat-up old road hog—riding down the highway that night—a lot of old heavy-metal going nowhere fast—even so it still kinda had lots of class—those rakish tits up front—those garish faded fins whooshing in the back—sleek old shark fins hissing into the night—the windows rolled down—smelling the swamp night stink—driving slowly down to Frenchman’s Bend—Butch Broussard on my mind—the radio turned down low…
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