ape and apricot

[constantine]

they play the game and mistake it for life
with words by max factor and maybelline
thrills, frills and chills - clearasil
in the studio audience
in the carnival of lost souls
i look for the subtext
the nervous twitch of her sexy pout
the tic beneath ultra-long lashes
the canines' gleam in her bleached smile
but it not just the jane
in this tawdry refrain
dick too has a seat on the mystery train
the handshake greeting that's really a beating
the fuck you domination
what rank? what station?
how many bucks bucko boy
life's a beach, the joy of a toy
hoy hoy
eloi eloi
lama sabachthani
even dad - even mommy
always a subtext
whether we know it or not
from oedipus rex to the hottentot
what have you got that i ain't got
who put the ape in apricot
in oz, the monkeys have wings

[constantine]

i like dr. strange too, but i'm a big fan of dino from way back. he looks like perry como, but doesn't have the pipes. wrang wrang - that's a hoot!!

[gypsyjoker]

Yeah printed Dr Strange out
Uncle abe before he went to war
just a kid
kept his comic books in the out house with a flash light
that house at eastern and caroline must have been the last one in baltimore that had an out house.
They finally took it out in the fifties and my grandmother planted a fig tree where it stood. It gave such delicious fruit.

I liked this one too dino but
it is over my head

lama sabachthani

I must be missing the subtext
I think life could be a game after all

the handshake greeting that's really a beating

I know that feeling.

I am going to get a flash light get under the covers and read Dr Strange again.

I could write about those foggy nights, the fog horns, the rail road tracks, the boxcars looming in the darkness, the spooky light from those old gas street lamps. The war, the black out curtains on the windows, and all the locks on the doors as if they could shut out the fear.

But I could never come up with a Dr Strange, Dr Saz, or Dr Doom.

I need more heroes.

So I turn to poets in my old age.
I will never be able to write poetry
just grateful I can read it
even if sub texts take me years to get

Anne Sexton's
When Jesus suckled
read that poem over and over and over
and one day I said
Oh
it's not about trucks

Wrang Wrang
I must have read five or six Vonnegut novels,
Only other author I have read so may novels by is Hesse
Steppenwolfe
I have a life time pass to the Magic Theatre.

Now I can tell about what I ate for breakfast
or what i am going to have for dinner

[constantine]

yeah, i like hesse too. haven't read anything by him that wasn't a thing of beauty; will have to reread his work - i was a lot younger when i read him. i'll probably get more out of him now, but even in my youth i thought his work very poetic and thought provoking.

[gypsyjoker]

Listen Dino
I don't want to lean on your tolerance for my rambling ways too hard,
but I find your writing as thought provoving and beautiful as Hesse.



I put that eastern and caroline info up for you to use if you wish,
I do not have gifts,
I know it is totaly unrelated to your poem, maybe I should have sent it in a pm,

I am wondering if you went to church as a kid, there was that eastern orthodox church on eastern ave just below broadway. I remember you saying your father was an atheist, mine too. Never went to Hebrew school even thought the women in my family wanted me to go. I am grateful to my father for that. But I would have liked to learn Hebrew. So many languages in my family I could have learned. Russian, Polish, Yidish,

I am the worse kind of Jew some say, assimilated. But even so still a jew.

“a Jew without Jews, without Judaism, without Zionism, without Jewishness, without a temple or an army or even a pistol, a Jew clearly without a home, just the object itself, like a glass or an apple”.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 499856.ece

Thinking about the lines of this poem about Christ and the crucifiction.

I like this board better for responding to your poems because as moderator you have the delete button and you can delete these rambles.

good poem Dino, excellent probably

I deleted this from the creative post cause it seemed like I was rambling

Dino wrote

the handshake greeting that's really a beating

I been there, got the broken bones in my head to prove it is true. I know a guy that always shakes hands with his left. Nothing wrong with his right hand, he just shakes with his left. Nice guy, straight shooter, and a convicted murderer.