King Kong Goes to Rotterdam
Why now King Kong me
Me silent seeker of the Rotterdam of pussycats
Me troubled watcher of St. Orlovsky’s bear
I’m in the ice-bags of tomorrow’s girl
My endless aspirations of Holland won’t save me
I’ve seen the blond girls of Rotterdam copulating
Oblivious of world sorrow
But ecstatic for corduroy trousers
I wear corduroy trousers
Yet I am a billion miles from pigtails
- Shoot Low, Sheriff, They’re Riding Shetland Ponies (Ottawa, 1964)
King Kong Goes To The Shawville Fair
O I went to the Shawville Fair
Hoping to find other Beasties there.
Alas there were none!
But still I had fun
Getting drunk with raccoons
On stale beer.
- The Black Prince of Bank Street (Ottawa, 2007)
A Monster's Travelogue
Concerning King Kong, aspirant Monarch of England, pussy-
footing rogue in Rotterdam & Cabbala Leader in sandy Saudi-Arabia,
as he travels to Tallahassee
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Battered & ball-wracked, immense pilgrim snug in his cups of horror,
King Kong with his nowtime fantastic followers:
Saudi-Arabian spiced & dreamy women--
Turtle eggs & weird chants of Cabbala admirers--
Whores from Holland in reluctant tow--
And sad and lonely tuberculosis of England waving a futile Union Jack--
"I arrive like many another before
Syphilitic on America's shore."
"O Mason-Dixon Line I lie snug below you!
O bayou hiding places!
Plans of conquest! The crackers with their ears filled with dirty wisdom!
Black-skinned memories of Mau Mau!
Sad gentlemen in wicked wicked Virginia!
And a final plowhorse of Tallahassee with leather eyes,
Suspicious of Alabama & Louisiana!"
"Whole political systems based on the words of Uncle Wiggly!
My childhood monster hero!
I have come to absorb you!
Damns that are dams of overflowing milk!
The ultimate kindness of abolished zoos!
Texas Texas Texas!
I tell you Tallahassee the smell of female sweat is sweeter than that
of juniper or magnolia
And you will never be a New Orleans!"
- Dancing Alone: Selected Poems 1960-1990 (Broken Jaw Press, 2005)
