April is the Foolest Month
No, April’s not the cruelest month, T.S.
And creepy winter never kept us warm.
Your Bloomsbury band bred some real B.S.
But worse, the crone Woolf froze her own art form.
The Book of Bloom was born without a bang
Or whiff of gold or frankincense or myrrh.
The anti-magi snarled with flash of fang,
The gifts they bared: scold, skank pretense, and slur.
The newborn thing lay unmourned all winter,
Never whimpered, named as a pariah,
Damned to Hell’s pit, even by the printer.
Till Sylvia Beach midwifed this new messiah.
When you gaze on wonders, be kind, not cruel
Lest they be wunderkind, then you’ll look the fool.
Updated: Mar 18
“Why the Shakespearean Sonnet?” Asked the Open-Mic Host
Here’s how my sonnet psychosis was born:
‘Gainst Hemingway I did commit a crime.
His gem, “For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn,”
I stole it. Then I shined it up with rhyme.
And my next victim: crazy Ezra Pound,
I smashed and grabbed his spanking new haiku.
Don’t blame me, what goes around comes around,
He robbed the old and claimed to, “Make it New.”
Delighted by my derring-do crime spree,
I craved crown jewels, so I snatched Shakespeare’s purse!
A sudden switcheroo: Now I’m not free
Entrapped by Will’s penitentiary of verse.
Confession time: James Joyce first stole my mind,
And history rhymes, so I too, steal in kind.
Art by Noah Davis
Bad Boy for Life, 2007
BELLO: (Coaxingly.) Come, ducky dear, I want a word with you, darling, just to administer correction. Just a little heart to heart talk, sweety. (Bloom puts out her timid head.) There’s a good girly now. (Bello grabs her hair violently and drags her forward.) I only want to correct you for your own good on a soft safe spot. How’s that tender behind? O, ever so gently, pet. Begin to get ready.
BLOOM: (Fainting.) Don’t tear my...
-Ulysses, James Joyce
Today’s Ezraku:
On the Wall of a Museum #6
Momma’s mouthless ass-whipping in a well-lighted room:
Sex switcheroo of a Bello-blighted Bloom.