SLIDELL SNOPES

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SLIDELL SNOPES
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Allen Hall

“not only the whites
but the black one too,
who were as much a
part of his ancestry as
his white progenitors”
—William Faulkner
Go Down, Moses

There wasn’t any—
MFA writing program
Back in the Sixties.

And the idea—
Of a Romanian poet
Like Codrescu…

Was as alien—
As “integration”
There at LSU.

WPA Murals

The WPA was still—
Hauntingly familiar
Back then in the ‘60s.

The whole campus—
Still imbued with Huey P. Long
Thirties nostalgia.

The Kingfish was dead—
Coinciding with JFK’s
Camelot demise in 1963...

Banana Republic

History humid—
Rotting, decadently moldy
Like Huey P. Long.

The tall skyscraper—
Capitol looming over
The Mississippi.

Sluggish lazy flow—
Down by the muddy levee
Past moody campus.

It was déjà vu—
The demise of two leaders
Kennedy and Long.

English Department

John Hazard Wildman—
Quiet cultured gentleman
From Alabama.

The Delta Journal—
He’d been advisor for years
Poetry gateway.

In the Sixties—
I was caught up in Faulkner
Way over my head.

Deeply in love then—
Absalom wasn’t the book
To be reading then.

Quentin Compson

Preoccupied with—
All the tragic closetry
Of Quentin back then.

Instead of Harvard—
Blow Job Hall over by the
Huey Long Fieldhouse.

Living in a dorm—
Like Quentin Compson there
In the Yankee North.

Except I was here—
A doomed decadent gay kid
Dixie ate me up.

Shreve McCannon

It was all so new—
All the naked young bodies
All the Deep South boyz.

Got weak in the knees—
Especially in the showers
Magnolias moaned.

A strange roommate guy—
Pascagoula Mississippi stud
Slim, syrupy, sexy.

Actually he was more—
Like sweet and sour sauce
Plus a big Fortune Cookie.

Charles Bon

He was like Charles Bon—
Right outta Faulkner’s sordid
Absalom novel.

His accent lazy—
Slow as the Tallahatchie
A young Delta Bourbon.

He missed his girlfriend—
Way back there in Biloxi
I tried to console him.

I pampered him—
Poor homesick lovestruck youngman
Both day & at night.

Sutpen Dynasty

Old Colonel Sutpen—
Had his grand Mississippi
Dynasty to build.

In Faulkner’s novel—
The plot was thickening bad
Henry had been had.

He’d fallen in love—
With Bon the true Sutpen heir
Incest raised its dinge head.

Judith enamored too—
Miscegenal sexuality oozed
Thru Sutpen’s Hundred.

Delta Denouement

The Dynasty doomed—
The Civil War was raging
Their own Viet Nam.

A Sutpen three-way—
Complicated the Plot jinxing
Henry, Judith, Bon.

All seen thru the eyes—
Of 2 Harvard roommates then
Poor Quentin, stoic Shreve.

Long troubled dorm nights—
Déjà vu séances with
Deep South Living Dead…

Going Down on Moses

“I don’t hate it!”
said Quentin.
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

“I didn’t hate it!”—
“I don’t hate the Deep South.
It’s just the opposite.”

Never fall in love—
While you’re reading Miss Faulkner
At the same time, please.

You’ll get the Delta Blues—
Wisteria will whisper
Sweet nothings in your ear.

Magnolias will rot—
Make you melancholy
Your meat will mildew…

Sutpen’s Hundred

Surviving Deep South—
Romance just aint easy
Dontchaknow…

Whether fictional—
The Sound and Fury stuff
Or real-life Heartbreak.

It was my bad luck—
To have Slidell Snopes for my
Troublesome roommate.

He wasn’t smooth smart—
Suave savvy like Shreve McCannon
He be Big Trouble.

Slidell Snopes

He didn’t last long—
Just all night long & then some
Incorrigible…

He didn’t last long—
The flunked out next semester
And then the was gone.

I almost flunked out too—
From not getting any sleep
Snopes boyz are bad news.

Are all Snopes that way—
Dirty white boyz upstairs
Mandingo dinge downstairs?

Mandingo Love

One of they guyz—
I the dormitory back the
Said he’d seen Slidell…

“It’s big & it’s black!!!”—
“He’s got lots of Mandingo
Black eat way down there!!!”

Naturally, of course—
The tongues wagged & eyeballs
Ogle for a good look.

Slidell in the showers—
He was a born show-off stud
All dinge 12 inches…

Delta Bourbon Badboy

Well, I was demure—
Coquettish & rather shy
I feigned innocence.

They wanted to know—
All the intimate secrets
What a roommate knew.

But I played it dumb—
Why should I spill Slidell’s beans
His Snopesian endowment?

True Confession

How lucky I was then—
Beneath the guillotine blade
Reading between the lines.

Of course, one must try—
Not to be unreliable narrator
Or a Southern liar.

But Slidell Snopes be—
So seminally selfprogenitive
With his apocryphal cum.

Each ejaculation was—
Like the levee flooding &
Washing me into the Gulf.

Apocryphal Archives

Speaking of liars—
Slidell Snopes came from a long
Line of slithering oracles.

Anaconda muses—
Python priestesses, muscular
Congolese rivers of darkness.

Pale thick nightcrawlers—
Impaled, swiggling on fishhooks
Snopes boyz were stealthy.

He could wrap it around—
Your neck & strangle you to death
If you weren’t careful…

Honeysuckle Nights

Honeysuckle nights—
That’s when it came out & prowled
It was real Sneaky.

I learned right away—
That you had to beat a Snopes
At his own game first.

So I got into it—
First thing right away at bedtime
Clicking out the lights.

Yes, Snopes were nocturnal—
In fact, they expected it
With guyz like me.

Maria Montez

Each & every night—
I pretend to be Maria Montez
The Cobra Woman (1943).

Lon Chaney Junior—
Bomba & John Hall
Were just the extras…

Me & the Cobra Woman—
Were the central characters
Garish Technicolor!!!

The sacrifices screamed—
Volcanoes erupted, ejaculated
The Snopes Snake got erect…

Slidell Snopes

His face beige-mauve—
Smooth & impenetrable
His eyes had seen too much.

His tight Negroid hair—
Had been treated so it fit
Like a tight skull-cap.

Neatly lacquered—
Buzz-cut look to it so his
Head was a bronze-bust.

He smoked a cigarette—
And looked up at the ceiling
When I did him at night.

Slidell Snopes (cont)

He was young, handsome—
Almost white enough to pass
For a Big Easy creole.

Maybe later on—
In a thousand years or so
We’d all be mauve like him.

It was something else tho—
That gave it all away for him
He let me know it.

He knew already that—
I was queer for him really bad
His Mississippi charm.

Slidell Snopes (cont)

I’d slip the sheets back—
I’d make it pop & snarl
I could hear the rain.

He didn’t say nothin’—
He just looked at the ceiling
Then away from me.

“The Delta,” I thought—
“The Delta” lying next to me
Denuded in male repose.

Spawning more Snopes—
Breeding more Southern
Uncouth charm for generations.

The Snopes Clan

They’re kinda like mold—
Growin’ real sleazy & slow
O green cheese, dontchaknow.

But it gets stinky tho—
Slidell Snopes was uncut
Had lots of smegma.

It stunk really bad—
He just let it grow down there
Kinda like skanky fondue.

I almost gagged at first—
Thought I was gonna vomit
But it got worse…

Southern Charm

Slidell be slimy—
Everything about the kid
Just slimed down the wall.

It just kinda oozed—
And took its own slow-pokey
Time slidin’ down my throat.

People sometimes ask—
Why imbibe such disgusting
Young Snopes atrocity?

All I can say is—
A man gets used to it some
And then needs it some more.

Biloxi Bowlegged

Gossip in the dorm—
Hushed conversations in rooms
Burning midnight oil..

They’d all noticed how—
Slidell had developed a
Really bad limp in the hall.

He walked bowlegged—
To the showers at night
Slidell was drained dry.

The cognoscenti—
Noticed an obscene hickie
On his pouty foreskin.

Biloxi Blues

Slidell be sneaky—
He also be black & blue
It be puffy & pouty.

Surely that girlfriend—
Way back there in Biloxi
Was in town again.

Little did they know—
I got my lips on it good
His Pascagoula penis…

His Yazoo ejaculations—
His Snopes offspring all mine
His roots, varicose vein.

Snopesian Genealogy

I almost switched majors—
English to Animal Husbandry
I was so much in love.

Male genitals and—
Snopesian Genealogy
Be so real & seminal…

Allen Hall said no tho—
I kept reading Miss Faulkner
Stayed lost in Absalom.

All these years later—
Still going down on Moses
Yoknapatawpha & Yazoo…