DECONSCRIPTION-Writings of Curtis Cottrell

1970s Poems













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Apocalypso Stomp

 

Chopchopchopchop

Chopchopchopchop

Chopchopchopchop

Squawkbeepsquawk

 

Copters cruise in the sunrise

Radar charting destination…

Taka-taka-taka

Taka-taka-taka

Pow-pow pow-wow

We were barely

Awake--duck now!

 

Ringadinga

Ringadinga

Kowtow!

 

Engines failing.

Smoke's exhaled:

Bail out!

 

Dropping suddenly to the ground

Hearing awfully shocking sounds

 

Onomatopoeia,

Onomatopoeia,

Onomatopoeia,

Stop stop stop.

Hop

And now I stop and turn around…

 

Whiz!

Bang!

 

10-4.

 

Auto da Fais Do-Do

 

We go in circles burning

Learning what we can

Yearning for another second

Turning point of man

Spurning last night's dreams

Earning less what seems

A drink

A cup

A throwing up

 

Haven't the foggiest

Keep the change

 

The Bell of Brandenburg

 

There was once a German town

Where the people got around

To deciding that their guild

Was going to build

Something to improve their stock;

That is, by this, I mean a clock.

 

They were all in their prime

And decided that the time

In common was the most

That they needed for their host.

 

They commissioned a great tinker:

He really was a thinker;

And he built this great timepiece

Facing sunrise in the east.

 

In it he placed a great big bell

Which every day the time would tell

By ringing people to their work

And on Sunday to the church.

 

On the day of dedication

There was great jubilation,

But when the time was there to sound

The architect was not around.

 

How could he be late

For this important date?

Where he was, no one could tell,

For he was working in the bell.

 

He could not join in with the fun

For his work was never done.

All the folks began to sing

When the bell began to ring:

 

Ding

Dong

Going

Gong

Hong

Kong

King

Kong

Living

Long

Ming

Among

Ping

Pong

Wring

Wrong

Sing

Sing

Thing

Thong

Wing

Wong

Yin

Yang

Zing

Zonk

 

Thirteen times it rang.

 

Then all he could hear was bells.

Bells Bells Bells Bells Bells Bells Bells

The ringinginginginging of the bell.

 

Dogged Will

 

Love has turned my heart around

Making my appointments late

While I only procrastinate

And stick my head into the ground.

A spring within me ticking tightens;

Manic frenzy yields succession

Of melancholy to depression:

Sleepless nights until dawn lightens.

 

Fortuna, must I be your fool?

My woe is not the want of wit

But temperance in using it.

I never tarried from Cupid's school;

Yet would I be love's loyal subject

If I could predicate my object.

 

ETV

 

Today's program being

Ossification of the spleen

By a catalytic halogen.

 

A doggoned dogged

Dogmatic doggerel

Dissertation done

By sentimental fools.

 

My thesis is on nurturalism:

"How-to" stories for tunnelvision,

whole wheat granola slices of life:

all argot, no preservative.

 

And now here's a word of interest

From our stimulus and responsor:

"Do."

That's it:  don't think, just do.

 

Like my old drill sergeant smirked

As I low-crawled in the sand:

"Son, look at your check:

How much do you get paid

For T-H-I-N-K?"     

 

This theory is saying that

There is a foolproof way

That one may skin a rat

Racing amazingly today.

 

Bridge: 

Rat race:  race riot!

 

Insert this here

Case in point

Out of joint

Star Whores

by Georg Lucaks

 

Must we hate black Barf Harder

Who's free from the Federation,

But love shiny brand-new automatic

PPTT and See Through BS, Too?

 

Okie from Muskogee

(alias "Cop Me One Cannabis")

explains the meaning of life

to our hero Luke Streetwalker:

 

"You yourself would also be mean

If there were sand in your Vaseline!"

 

This is a pilot's-eye view of

The destruction of the Death Planet:

Ten minutes of Hate.

Slay it again, Sam.

 

Much meaning implodes

As the self explodes.

 

May the farce be with you

Sorry blues singers who

Have to pay what is due.

 

This dangerous banality

Is green like lucre, lust and snot

Fading back on quotidian reality

It's time to end this gauze shot.

 

A successful commercial writer's wallet

Is closely connected to the gonads:

A calcified pineal won't forestall it

As it relates to the movie monads.

 

Ridge:

 

Osmosis is becoming

Terminally  cute

As Donny and Marie,

Bellyfeel.

 

Smeagol may have been

A very nasty hobbit,

Yet here is a gem

From the collector's conscience:

 

One twilit evening at the grocery store

A so-called husband snarled at his son:

"Behave or you'll get the belt!"

at this, the kid started to scream

Just like it was bloody Mordor.

 

So there you have it.  If you please,

Regard this office like a dentist's

Remember many cranial cavities

Among diseased masses sensing no menace.

 

Out with this Hansel and Gretel syndrome,

Leaving clues behind like rabid habits.

Get the Hell out of here right now,

And don't forget your god-damned tunnelvision.

 

BS:  -- with slopes for all

And malice to warn sum.

Satire closes on Saturn's day,

Biting offspring's heads.

 

Now you know better than to….

Arg!

Something's got me!

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Dead air, white noise

 

Another voice continues mechanically:

Sorry for this technical difficulty.

We will now resume our regular programming.

Stay tuned for this important announcement:

Buy!  That's it:  don't think; just buy!

 

Geode

 

AA.

Aa aa.

Aa aa aa,  pahoehoe:

Magma oozes, spurts up wildly,

Churning, bubbling conglomeration,

Burning, erupting radiation

Seething free from under

Batholithic pressurization

Meeting the cool, clear air:

Crystals coalesce becoming new again.

From these I have fashioned this obsidian arrowhead.

You can see yourself among its razor-sharp facets.

 

 

Jailbait

 

Wonderful – Marvelous

Oh, my Marie

Princess and/or concubine

You sometimes seem to be

A lithe moonraker.

A heavy speedtaker.

Why won't you listen to me?

 

Why I've got dreams and schemes,

So don't get money funny

We've got our loving for free.

 

That's so.

 

We're walking on the beach.

It's not far from reach.

 

Then nothing.

 

Pausefourinterceptdelaysquelch

Rickatickatickatavi snakebite.

 

More cake?

 

Man and His Merry Robins

 

Stopping to watch the woods

On a winter afternoon,

I spied a family of robins

Through the picture window.

 

They peeked under the leaves

And pecked for worms and grubs,

A red-breasted band of gypsies

Robbing me no less rich.

 

I felt glad they came to my lot;

It seemed an omen of good luck

For this happy family to come to me

To share their joy this spring.

 

Yet as I watched, there was an alert,

Heads would start and eyes would dart,

Wondering what invader had come too close.

Down descended darkly a flock of crows.

 

Then this new wave began to caw

And flew the black flag of their own law.

 

Man and His Merry Robins

 

Stopping to watch the woods

On a winter afternoon,

I spied a family of robins

Through the picture window.

 

They peeked under the leaves

And pecked for worms and grubs,

A red-breasted band of gypsies

Robbing me no less rich.

 

I felt glad they came to my lot;

It seemed an omen of good luck

For this happy family to come to me

To share their joy this spring.

 

Yet as I watched, there was an alert,

Heads would start and eyes would dart,

Wondering what invader had come too close.

Down descended darkly a flock of crows.

 

Then this new wave began to caw

And flew the black flag of their own law.

 

The Night They Fought the War

Between the North and the South

In Our House

 

North

US                                                                     and a cast of billions

South

 

Scene opens with US watching TV, the smaller the better.

The TV is facing him so that it illuminates his face,

Although it is silent or perhaps nearly so,

So that it provides random noise.

US appears mesmerized by the television

So that he does not notice the entrance of North and South,

Who are dressed as a Mountie and a Bandito.

They approach US and stand with

North to his right and South to his left.

They turn down the TV,

Reach into their holsters,

And draw calculators.

 

Persephone:  Hymn to an Imaginary Moonchild

 

Coldhearted orb in the far eternal night

Circling Pluto in the distant dim and dark

 

Oh, you daughter of fecundity

Did you pluck a pretty posy?

Is it time for the harvesting

Or was that flower some hour?

Picking pits of a pomegranate

Affording funerary furnishing

Bony bouquet for bridal bower

Just over three months now;

So you couldn't take it and left.

Hecate, why can't you ever see

Could you stay for another day?

Pulchrerrimae excelcior esse!

 

Prepossessed

 

She was just a lonely succubus

Not really truly one of us

Floating free she flitting flees

Over the hills and through the trees

Into the river from a sparkling stream

Into my life from a feverish dream

 

She whirls in a dizzying dance

Feet fly, tapping chants

Figure of romance

Without merest chance

 

If there exists

In waking world

Such a girl

Taking risks

Will unfurled

Gain the pearl

 

Project NOLA Express

 

Desire, Fisher and Melpomene concentration camps

Were brought to us by makers of tattoo-shaded lamps

 

Coming across the causeway

Looking along the lake

Seeing if the storm will clear

And what is in its wake

 

Gigantasaurus Superdome

Sits atop the city;

Looks like some inhuman craft;

Isn't it a pity?

 

Inside the coliseum

The factions fight it out

For frustration reinforcement

Engrossed in gladiator bouts

 

Why?  Why?  Why?  Why?  Why? Why?  Why?

 

Our project for the present

Is peace and life for all,

But just how can we do it

Before the darkness falls?

 

Remember RN

 

Here lil

Richard

Shoutin

Alabama

Lama!

White

Noise

An od

Dada

Said

Jamesurlray

To fathaMLK

Surch 40

Obsolute

Ya capon saying

And and and and

Right

But I

Didn't wanna

Hear it so I

Shotcha

Whomp

Bomba

Lunat

Too

Wam

Bam

Boo

Who

 

Saturday AM:  To Heraclitus

 

Waves on seas

Waves on sand

Waves on back

On back again

 

Waves on rock

On seas again

On rock again

In around and

 

On back again

On sand again

To rock again

Andandandand

 

I understand.

 

Separation

 

Synthea Starling,

Oh, doll darling,

Smashed your image cold

On a shining dance floor.

Fat city glitter girl,

Dime a go.

What a show!

Things go better with smoke,

You witch!

You say you're white;

You're black as night:

Angst alleys in your eyes –

Bloodsucker.

 

Now where is my wife

As I run for my life

If I ever could find her

I'd –

 

Song of the Christian Soldier

 

The sacred rose in bloom,

Red rushing river of blood

Ripe apple red on my speartip

The blood, the blood, the blood on my spear

Entering the right side -- the wrong side gashed,

Blood gushing out from inside one Pilate forty lashed.

Was I the one who thrashed?

I had know from fierce fought battles

Physicians err right to the heart,

So I lanced him there; his pain I could not bear.

For I remembered we had met on the hot, the burning dusty road.

I had played him for the toad, although he the most was not.

"Give me half your cloak," I had sneered from my mount.

Then he gave me the whole thing; of that, I could not account:

That common lowly Hebrew such like that would do

For such as me, a mercenary.

Pack picked up, down the way was carried.

A mile further down the road still bending from the load,

Plodding, sweating all the while, he parted with a silent smile.

Day after day the smile tended to stay

And seemed to change my ways.

Yard by yard softening the hard toil of my day for so little pay.

Yet today, but today, why today?

What a day!  A cloudy day even.  Why should he end this way?

To him I'll give the vine, as his blood is my wine,

Soak the sponge in the bitter vetch;

Oil of assassins, oil of poppies, and that of the flytrap toadstool

For a sleep stronger than mortal.  I wink as he drinks.

Bystanding Pharisees and Centurions

Think this gaunt lone soul has relieved the lost dolor.

Did he really die alone?  We'll see when we roll away the stone.

 

There's Someone I'd Like You to Meet

 

"This actually happened."  Ginzberg

"I knew very well I could not."  Whitman

"Who are you?"  Carroll

 

Jay found Jesus in a very public place: 

In jail.

Parish prison provide his keep and hold

So many moons.

 

Fasting three weeks, liquid diet –

Black tongue –

Psychotoxins and other poisons purged:

Sweating it out:

His skin faded a whiter shade

 

In the cell unlit from without.

Layers of being moulted away.

 

Then there was The Book.

Not a mattress-linted crotch novel,

But what is always given,

Not the way out,

But the Way.

 

He lives in the baffon now

Free

Past bridges over les cocodriles below

Through the dark tangled woodlands

Passing on dirty gravelly roads,

To the smooth blacktop on the other

Side of the swamp from town.

Which town?

Come in.

$12.50 a month.

He grows his own and raises chickens.

A girl who used to live there

Used to bathe on the porch.

Jay might get an electric pump.

 

In the egg-cartoned music room,

There's a ladder up.

In the attic, he fixed into the roof

A glass-lined cruciform over his bed

For the pilots to see at night.

 

He has no locks.

He will never cheat you.

 

We sat at the table by the hearth.

He fixed us some food.

Raw peanuts in a box there.

We munched over half.

"Seeing those peanuts there;

I'm going to grow them;

So don't eat them."

 

We said we did,

But he didn't get mad.

I guess he was happy we liked them.

 

Wake Up

 

Taking a twist we turn toward

Tim Finnegan, Mason

Who falls off the wall

As he tries to patch a hole in the roof.

He hoists a bundle of bricks aloft, and

Tethers taut the line on a pylon's pike,

But the knot unravels and is loose.

He lunges and catches the cable,

But is plucked from gravity's pull

By a weight greater than his own.

This is the law of diminishing returns.

Careening from the caelum,

The basket of bricks bashes him

On its way down to the ground.

Pulled up to the pulley

His fingers are mangled

By wheels within wheels.

His load having been dropped,

The basket is borne upwards

Bashing again the falling Finnegan

After his flight into the firmament.

Down on the ground an echo resounds

And he finally lets loose of the rope.

The basket is suddenly brought

To the center of his thought

------ too late.

It comes and crashes into his cranium.

There he lies.

The subject is still in critical condition.