[lit-ideas] Re: SUNDAY'S MONDAY POEM
- From: "Torgeir Fjeld" <torgfje2@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 23:41:19 +0100
That guy in the wheelchair
the one who's black as tire smoke
the one with no legs,
that one,
yes, (5)
what's he want?
How come he keeps staring at me?
I didn't do it.
It's true that life is rife
with things to rue. (10)
Grandpappy Sweet
would chop off the feet
of slaves who tried to run,
but that was just for fun,
to punish them, (15)
he hung them from a limb.
But I didn't do that.
How come he keeps staring at me?
I'm as innocent as can be.
And all those Vietnamese (20)
melted like cheese
in napalmy breeze
-- please,
I wasn't there,
why do you stare (25)
at me?
Go away, I say.
I'm as innocent as a Sunday Morning
I'm giving you fair warning.
Get away from me. (30)
I have a gun, you see.
--- Mike Geary
On 26 Apr 2004 at 13:12, Michael Geary wrote:
> That guy in the wheelchair
> the one who's black as tire smoke
"black as tire smoke"
> the one with no legs,
> that one,
> yes, (5)
this "yes", is it a reply, or a reiteration?
> what's he want?
> How come he keeps staring at me?
> I didn't do it.
very unexpected, the "do". one would think, perhaps, that the
wheelchaired man may be staring at the poetic self because of some
attribute of s/h/it's appearance, not for some singular act?
> It's true that life is rife
note in-rhyme.
> with things to rue. (10)
ABBA
> Grandpappy Sweet
> would chop off the feet
> of slaves who tried to run,
> but that was just for fun,
AABB
> to punish them, (15)
> he hung them from a limb.
> But I didn't do that.
ok, so here's the transgression -- his granddad's. poetic self feels
wrongly accused (misinterpellated by SO, the big other, as a lyncher).
the reference to Lacan's Schema L is pursued through to the absence of
verbal ques from _le petit autre_, the wheelchaired man. it is through
the gaze, the gaze of the Law, embodied in the wheelchaired man, that
poetic self is called upon.
> How come he keeps staring at me?
> I'm as innocent as can be.
AA
note the tendency to irony here. it seems to render the verses 11-16 in a
new light? are these descriptions hyperbolic?
> And all those Vietnamese (20)
> melted like cheese
> in napalmy breeze
> -- please,
AAAA
so added to the crime of his granddad's are added those of the vietnam
war, again with an ironic twist, hyperbolically merging anti-war
discourse with what could be a reference to advertising language? ("with
a layer of melted cheese") humor this time verging on the desperate.
> I wasn't there,
> why do you stare (25)
> at me?
> Go away, I say.
AABB
> I'm as innocent as a Sunday Morning
> I'm giving you fair warning.
> Get away from me. (30)
> I have a gun, you see.
AABB
brill.
--
Torgeir Fjeld
torgfje2@xxxxxxxxxx
http://home.no.net/torgfje/
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