My Own Private Ulysses: On James Joyce. 2024

On James Joyce. 2024

What needs James Joyce for these reheated clones,

The belabored rhymes and cold homophones,             

Or, that his name and fame should be undid                 

By self-appointing who crave to forbid?               

Master of the modern, breaker of frame,               

What needs you such poor players of your game?        

That in their blunder and befuddlement,                    

Your immortality you did cement.                      

For wile, I push my dainty dessert cart,                   

Your minced riddles humble every pie chart.           

Do they believe your art’s gobbledygook,

The most impressive feast ever to cook?               

They taste then lie, when as this they should try,

Compliment the chef, as did Satan’s guy.

My Own Private Ulysses: Still Not a Poet

Still Not a Poet

No, I can’t quote James Joyce chapter and verse,      

I have no solve for his Gordian Knot.                  

And when I converse, I rarely coerce.                 

I’m not a scholar, I just rhyme a lot.                

So, you’re a cultivator of the vine?              `   

Or, like Dude’s line, a human paraquat?               

Fine, you opine on thine wine, I decline.                   

I’m not a critic, I just rhyme a lot.                  

From itself, poetry staged secession.                  

As simile stands, there’s like a boycott.             

Invention sold out for self-expression.               

I’m not a poet, I just rhyme a lot.                    

But on Joyce I’m big fun, a good layer,

I just crushed a lil’ pun for you, player.

My Own Private Ulysses: Bloom’s Three-Body Problem

First is queen Molly, Bloom’s wandering wife,

Her mind’s a river of run-on phrases,            

More like a gutter, with smut her head’s rife.        

Her thirst has lit his world up in blazes.            

And the princess of the seaside striptease,           

Gerty shines outside, not some boom-boom room.        

And when it comes to that seminal sneeze,             

Her gravity pulls it out of old Bloom.                

And Martha, whom Bloom keeps under his hat,           

He’s hounded by her cool haughtiness.                 

Oh, his gentle lady’s a real wildcat,                 

Who purrs to punish his hot naughtiness.              

Bloom spirals chaotic between three stars.            

He’d have more luck with green women from mars.

Stay tuned for more celestial sonnets.

Same starry time, same spinning channel.