10 verses from 777
she urged on me a co
py of the book she knew
most likely would be
her last when she ask’d had
I read it I spent time inventing
excuses what gooseflesh truths in the pages
of that gift I’d dismissed as a poet’s vanity
+
when the man says Daboozie
rather than Debussy
it means curiosity’s
propelled him to teach himself
about this music why should I be
the one who despoils his enjoyment
by correcting
+
love what is love why
would anyone think it’s only 1
thing & define that in only 1
way it is both the wish & the granting
a dictionary w/as
many entries as there are
stars
+
I write this as a warning to the world
Wilfred Burchett 1st Western corre
spondent to reach Hiroshima describes
peel’d flesh teeth dropt away unstop
pable blood loss the hair falling out was more
or less the last stage press credentials withdrawn he was ex
pelled by the Allied Occupation readings/appearancesities from Japan
+
he who announces himself as not merely ‘the best’ but ‘the only’ poet in our city
at least has the excuse of what passes for youth
no one 50 would admit to harboring such undignified daydreams
but since our poet has lost the faculty for listening, if he ever possessed it
he couldn’t know that it’s only a role he’s performing
one which inspires brows to rise & sighs to issue
& which ends always the same: in bitter silence
+
the cat at the top of the stairs
watches me ball socks & underwear
into a bunch & hurl this
toward the open hamper when the clothes
fall across the floor before reaching said destination
he stares at them then back at me
as if to say how is it possible to be this stupid
+
the flies bide their time by the door
it opens they race for the litter box
in their world every day
is a shitty day
& every shitty minute Christmas
now they zoom around writing thank
you notes in Braille
+
darker than water but 1 shade lighter than
the tire on which they perch
13 shells of varying size
a bale of testudines gather solar
13 heads point south necks stretch’d snouts
sniff the low incoming wind
they look as if they’re listening to Mozart
+
a remarkable small man, very
thin and pale, with a profusion of fine, fine
hair of which he was rather vain
tenor Michael Kelly’s reminiscence of Wolf
gang Amadeus M. by quality & output arguably the great
est artist that ever lived
Wikipedia informs readers he kept a pet starling
+
like most war memorials this one
is essentially a matter of the
ruling class using public funds to con
gratulate itself on its skillful ability to fool
the rest of us into sacrificing
anything & everything inc. our
lives in its interests
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Philadelphia poet Jim Cory’s work has appeared, among many other places, in several landmark gay poetry anthologies such as Son of the Male Muse and A Day for a Lay. He’s published seven chapbooks of poems with more to come and will be reading from work that’s been published in the last year as well as from a work-in-progress called 777.
click here to read Now or Never, a poem by Jim Cory featured on amusejanetmason.com
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