Saturday, January 3, 2009

Sub-Bourbon Dreams

I really tried to find something happy and interesting for today.  I can't quite make those two things work together.  Calling Doctor Bombay ... I'm afraid faithful reader and adroit commenter Laura Lee might be having nightmares about her kitchen by now.  I did find this bit a hallucigenia (is that a word?).   I hate the suburbs so I'm okay with letting the dogs take over.  I wasn't convinced about this one until I saw the (sub)burban/bourbon wordplay.   Hmmm ... I think my title is better than the one below. 

 

  When the dogs take over suburbia

Black stuttered shutterds nailed
opento bricks not shutup
ornamuhmental howhowse
with squirrelrobins stapledto

oaktreelawn ornamuhmints
ceramicwhite kittypaws fixed
to bricks backtacked as the 
lackeredblack stutters unhide

the burbanslob bourbonflesht
unrealing inside
  fuh fuh
whatthe fuhfuh hesays asthe

neighbuh borhood dogsnot 
pokerplaying drive a toothpicksharp
(Milk Bone trained dogeschewed)
picketwhite stake inna the

velveeta painting of 2dogsuit
people buttsniffing bumperchasing
pierces the fabric HeyHoYipYip
so Luckycracks open a bottle uh

bloodNsprays down the wallpaper 
cuz he shookitup & fizzed
fuhgleeing over the smattered

melancolliemood of the staketosser
as his muhmuh aster limps
from the frame.

 1998

If only...

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Owl Meat Groupthink,

Maybe we can entice TerrierMom to weigh in on this one.

I like reading your poems. I suppose they sound good read out loud but I just like seeing all those words, stumbling over constructions such as dogeschewed, ornamuhmints (ornament + monument + cutesy pie mints), and melancolliemood which I'd never get on hearing. The mind wanders: Mahmood. Black bile. Black shutters. Picketwhite stake. The horror that is the suburbs.

I live in the suburbs, just barely. I still think of myself as a city dweller biding my time while raising my kids in a halfway decent school system. My house is old with real shutters that have been banging away in the high winds. As for the nightmare that is my kitchen: no counters, no dishwasher, a pantry cold enough to store cheese and butter. But I like it that way, it's only a nightmare to certain (suburban) visitors.

I hope you've had some Sub-Bourbon time yourself this holiday. Happy New Year to you both!

Owl Meat said...

Thanks LL. Did you ever see someone's suburban house with a ceramic squirrel or kitty nailed to the roof or the shutters? I think that made a perverse impression on me a long time ago.

A ha. Someone finally got it. Yes, there is a visual component in this kind of writing where sound and sight mingle in a stew of language like a multimedia kaleidoscope-o-phone. I wonder if kids have any idea what a kaleidoscope is now?

I really appreciate your comments.

Anonymous said...

Sure, I remember seeing those kitties attached to the fronts of houses in the 60's and 70's; not recently though. I always liked when there was a pair. Fun for kids but I don't know what the adults who did it were thinking.

I've always enjoyed reading ever since I learned how. I really have a hard time understanding people who don't. I don't mean because of time constraints, we all have that. But people who just don't see the point of it. Then again, I've noticed that people who aren't big readers are often good at conversation which is very important but unfortunately not my strong suit. This is all to say that while I love getting lost in a book, slogging through the classics and even (in younger days) committing verse to memory, I never took a course in literature in college. I was pretty busy getting in all the science requirements (no flights of fancy there) and so didn't get around to some of the more entertaining stuff. So please keep 'em coming Owl Meat Guru. Education never ends.

Owl Meat said...

You are a ray of sunshine LL. I probably remember just one kitty on a shutter from my childhood (and some rooftop ceramic squirrels) that I had to drive by every day during a certain period in my childhood. It's funny how something like that can stick with you.

I've got something tasty lined up for tomorrow. Hey, it's tomorrow. Cool.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the shoutout Laura. If you knew me, you would know that the dogs have already taken over here. I could use one of those paramilitary prairie dogs to keep the real dogs in line.

Anonymous said...

Prairie dog? You may be right. I thought it was a squirrel come down from the shutter to which it was crucified. Looking for revenge.

Owl Meat said...

A squirrel without a tail LL? I found that photo by googling "dog army". Yeah, it's cheating a little, but it's a cool picture.

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