Department of Hobos - Department of Bridges - Department of Hart Cranes

It would be an exaggeration to say we're working hard on the extensive endnotes for our illuminated poetry book Prophecy & Doggerel. But I got several e-mails wondering about the reference to "Hart Crane the Hobo" in the recent nonsense poem Evacuate the Species Prayer. The full line - "Flying over Brooklyn like Whitman or Hart Crane the Hobo" - is a reference to how both American poets wrote about crossing into Brooklyn, Whitman by ferry, Hart Crane by Brooklyn Bridge.

We had looked up Brooklyn Bridge poetry because for our William McGonagall projects. He famously disses the Brooklyn Bridge in his poem "An Address to the New Tay Bridge", which inspired us to set it to hot hip-hop beats & ignite a rap battle between Dundee's Tay Bridge (once the longest in the world) & the mighty Brooklyn Bridge. Turns out there's plenty of poetry about the latter, but none quite as doggerelesque as McGonagalls, & certainly none that call out challenges to lesser bridges. Gold Diamonds rapped a lyric by D. B. Steinem, Brooklyn Bridge at Nightfall. But Hart Crane's poem we deemed too good. The whole battle is at our Department of Bridges.

Hart Crane published The Bridge in 1930, two years before he jumped off an ocean liner at age 33. I was trying to echo The Bridge's westward train trip in "Evacuate the Species Prayer", & I couldn't resist the hobo passage in "The River":

Behind

My father’s cannery works I used to see
Rail-squatters ranged in nomad raillery,
The ancient men—wifeless or runaway
Hobo-trekkers that forever search
An empire wilderness of freight and rails.
Each seemed a child, like me, on a loose perch,
Holding to childhood like some termless play.
John, Jake or Charley, hopping the slow freight

—Memphis to Tallahassee—riding the rods,
Blind fists of nothing, humpty-dumpty clods.

Yet they touch something like a key perhaps.
From pole to pole across the hills, the states
—They know a body under the wide rain;
Youngsters with eyes like fjords, old reprobates
With racetrack jargon,—dotting immensity
They lurk across her, knowing her yonder breast
Snow-silvered sumac-stained or smoky blue—
Is past the valley-sleepers, south or west.
—As I have trod the rumorous midnights, too...

I'm not sure is the breast is twelve-year-old Pocahontas's (as the symbol of Natural America), or some sort of Grand Teton. I wondered, considering the hobo connection, if John Hodgman had jumped on any reference in his "Here are the 700 Hobo Names You Have Requested". I don't see any Harts or Cranes, but there's plenty of Johns, Jakes, & Charleys. "Humpty-Dumpty Clods", from the poem, would be a good hobo name. You know there's a website called E-Hobo.com where people have been posting their illustrations of the 700 hobos. Here's #112 Lois "Charles" Ladyfingers:

Also, I just put up a another excerpt mini-book from Prophecy & Doggerel on Scribd, the poem Remember Artie Wongay, with illustrations by Grainne Proinseas (taken from her Beautiful to Forget travelogues) & Olaf Mary Mohammad:

Scribd Reminder: Prophecy & Doggerel & Others

The illuminated poetry book on Scribd is undergoing some subtle adjustments, but still no endnotes. Believe you me, you'll be the first to know. I'm still having trouble with some of the pictures (some of them aren't supposed to have that annoying gray border.) It's been expanded to include Remember Artie Wongay. You could be the first costumer to pay $2.15 for the complete version. E-mail me if you want the whole thing for free. (Push F11 for fullscreen, then toggle to scibd's fullscreen - beautiful!)

S. Sandrigon - Prophecy and Doggerel 2009

Also, don't forget Grainne's Beautiful to Forget, our Balkan travels illuminated:

Beautiful to Forget

Remember Artie Wongay

This poem was writ on the bus from Rousse to Sofia - - - - - & here it is now!

I.
Remember Artie Wongay? refusing to write another Latin opera,
He spilled himself another tall glass of Terra Firma.

Remember, Artie Wongay-- -- Your highest note is my most guttural,
You may be an archvillain but you'll never be my motherall.

Remember Artie Wongay? the same galactic superstar from our rediscovered kingdom--
The same false prophet of the ancients has been lurking home.

Remember, Artie Wongay-- -- The forest set cyclically on fire,
Balancing on daffodils like a whale on a wire.

Remember Artie Wongay! & don't forget him!
He'll follow you in your dreams, eat you as an obese madam.

II.
Remember Artie Wongay? the flames? & the rodeo disco stirrapes?
Are you paying attention to this, come ask her apes.

Remember, Artie Wongay-- -- Now don't let's repossess,
Flight of the flammivomous scarecrows, loser, a coma, scary piss.

Remember Artie Wongay? like swingers, we'll swing from here to there-ish,
Tangents that come out of everywhere like a coked-up priest coming out of his parish.

Remember, Artie Wongay-- -- Your lowest note is my most pathetic.
Spiriduş, spiriduş, you go thru me like a big borscht diuretic.

Remember Artie Wongay! & don't let him be forgotten-- --
Till there's cucumber sandwiches in summer & highways are made out of cotton.

III.
Remember Artie Wongay? the tobacco brush combust again,
The tobacco brush in & out of love, but I mustn't complain.

Remember, Artie Wongay-- -- Tell it to the whores of night justice,
They'll spill for you another tall glass of the earth's crustice.

Remember Artie Wongay? today I've virulent & vital.
I'm the vanguard seer of capitalism, I'm the actuary's meat-hole.

Remember, Artie Wongay-- -- You're a mixture of scum & bismuth,
We will do vorpal battle except for from Thanksgiving thru Chrismuth.

Remember Artie Wongay! & please don't forget him,
Lock him in gyves & smell the ocean if you've ever met him.

IV.
Remember Artie Wongay? savages fornicating on the side of the road,
He was my enemy & he will be again soon when the stars explode.

Remember, Artie Wongay-- -- Your lowest note is my noblest nebulous,
There isn't room enough in any register for the two of us.

Remember Artie Wongay? he torched the redwood,
In a century where you could still smoke on the bus, the living could, the dead could.

Remember, Artie Wongay-- -- This planet is not your abattoir.
Snow on Mercury, rain in Uranus, scrape the ozone with her claw.

Remember Artie Wongay! Don't let him be forgot!
Don't let him be a robot in this wilderness of rot!

V.
Remember Artie Wongay? he wronged you too late & too little,
A villain of Marfan stature & a troublingly easy riddle.

Remember, Artie Wongay-- -- The embers of prudence & fortitude,
A virgin except where we couldn't see, wine & dining her with a platitude.

Remember Artie Wongay? remember his gelatinous melodramatic smirks?
I tell you what I recall, his foulest & least forgiving quirks.

Remember, Artie Wongay-- -- Slabs of granite diving up to the jive,
Spiriduş, spiriduş, come inside of me & stay inside & thrive.

Remember Artie Wongay! keep repeating till you can't be forgotten:
The most Pyrrhic ping-pong tourney we ever fought in.

I need you.

I.
Place an order for the tallest champagne fountain imaginable,
I want Pompadour coupes balanced higher than the ceiling.
A night at the science center, among dinosaur fossils humongous & fragile,
We want to throw a party fit for mutants, a gala glamorous with real feeling.

There's so much to celebrate, sparkling swampy like the bijou,
You don't realize how much I need you.

Won't you consider my poetic gems? Melt, melt,
This frozen liver, come down into the Vision Mine,
Down where we wait for our investments to return: magical cards waiting to be dealt,
Crystals for the convention & centuries-old underground wine,

A few dead canaries & a stubbed pinky toe,
You don't realize how much I need you.

Oh, there's such anger at this party, the chef exploding
Into an Oscar-nominated lightshow: indigo & uncleaned latrines,
This party's like a brown dwarf with its bronze-gilting corroding,
I miss having a lady-friend where you could read her fortune on her breasts' blue veins.

Like a dead newspaper, lost the possibility to read you,
You don't realize how much I need you.

Nazi gold, Nazi gold! I'm in my bathtub waiting to be born,
Fifty dollars worth, compared to the trials of the supermanly,
I admit that I am not supermanly. This is not the forum
Nor with casual contemptuous ease & true certainty,

Who will leave you on the freeway like a sloppy rotting poo,
You don't realize how much I need you.

Meet me at the crossroads of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue
And deep space, look into the Vision Mine & look at Orestes,
See the stars getting blurrier - promises of ten time ten times today's revenue,
Ponzi Bear scheming out of hibernation, now hidden like walrus testes,

Hidden like creosote, like feeding me feed you,
You don't realize how much I need you.

This is nothing fancy - deeper than innocence but still nothing fancy,
Deeper than nonsense but less artsy-pantsy than karate,
Far less profound than the adolescent brides at the compound, skilled in fruit prophecy & fructomancy,
More or less romance than the fruit-fly's dance, not fancy nor a very special dichotomy,

Get the party started & send shirley temples to the kids' party, too,
You don't realize how much I need you.

II.
Having seen their reflections, let my people go on & on & on,
Vituperations aside, we anticipate an above-average get-together,
And unnoticed resurrections, Jenny departing with the next cannon,
Above the clouds, outrageously red & above the weather,

You loved me whenever I wore the newest decade's bad hairdo,
You don't realize how much I need you.

Won't you consider my poetic gems? Let down
Your satan-stained trousers. Consider these carousers,
Consider their railroad gin: The king of catering, his fleshpot crown,
And his Amuse-Bouche Princess, imprisoned inside their netscape browsers.

Julius "I Like Ike" Caesar will sing for you his campaign credo,
You don't realize how much I need you.

Find us in this redwood forest with its briers & thorns, all-males,
Handsome little escorts, their Republican ex-congressmen forestfowl,
They're so bitchy about the punctuality of their cocktails.
And they dance & chant a copyrighted barbershop hymnody around a giant pagan owl:

Waked by strange cries of the dogosaur towards dawn, startling like cocky-doody-doo,
You don't realize how much I need you.

After their lost election, they quickly retreat to their retreat,
Into the earth in search of quartz contentment,
Having been embarrassed all over by scandal, comes a volcan fatigue.
What the sunchokes meant, never know what the other roots fomenting meant,

What the tunnel went, you don't know why this generation won't heed you,
You don't realize how much I need you.

The same archvillain we thought we had destroyed,
The same Artie Wongay, a racist stereotype with the same monologues,
Rises again from the undermine, new laser-missiles deployed,
New raisins in your healthy cereal, the same new crocogogues:

Again the mutants pull together, rescued the planet & freed you,
You don't realize how much I need you.

Now there's reasons to celebrate, space for a holiday.
I want mimosas in coupes for every true citizen.
The circus has set free their elephants & returned from faraway,
The Vision Mine is clogged up & left to be forgotten:

Some day its portals will be as incontinent as the imaginary galaxy our villain has fleed to,
You don't realize how much I need you.

Gromoglasan & Tubalny Fraturnamore Go to War

Two brothers, Gromoglasan & Tubalny,
Have told their mother not to weep no more,
The Fraturnamoré sons must go to war,
Or risk returning no more, or never to be.

Their father sounds a protozoic trumpet,
And hand and hand they walk towards the desert,
Beginning this quest reminds them of a seaside resort
That they would travel to with their family before they met.

"Are we protecting our country or our dignity?"
Gromoglasan asks his younger brother.
"Would you sacrifice yourself to save the other?
"Would you run if you could be certain of impunity?"

"If I'm not scared then I will be loud about it,"
Young Tubalny responds to Gromoglasan.
"But if I'm loud, that's not necessarily the reason:
"Any cause or emotion will be waved & shouted."

They are subsequently delayed by a huge stench,
And sunk up to their ear-holes in a shitty gutter,
They struggle, but no reasoning mortal can sort this clutter,
So for forty days, they party with lowlifes in a manmade trench.

They are helped out by one of the six French Allies,
Refusing to write another Catholic opera,
His name is Artie Wongay, formidable enemy of error,
He points them in the right direction, then follows creepily in disguise.

"The war must be on the other side of this forest,"
Gromoglasan proposes to his younger brother.
"I want to criticize the cause, but I don't want to be a bother.
"All I can think about is querulous purists, I've never met a terrorist."

"Let's lie here for awhile, beneath the shade of these elves,"
Says bold young Tubalny, already worse for wear.
"I'm hovering between ecstasy & despair,
"But I'm turned on by the possibility of strapping guns onto ourselves."

The brothers Fraturnamore reenact several rhetorical bombings & battles,
In the shadows, Artie Wongay shakes his head in critical astonishment,
He turns himself into a ravaging fire of atonement,
And pelts them with boulders & immolating projectiles.

A redwood falling, Gromoglasan leaps onto his brother to save him,
And, waving & shouting, Tubalny is squashed beneath two burning weights,
An ancient forest disappears amid national loves & hates,
And Artie Wongay, passionate but indifferent, retreats back to his haven.

Lament! Godlike Father Stentor Fraternamoré play your violy!
Your mother can weep no more above the televised roar!
A righteous cover-up & the hopelessness of the brothers Fraternamore!
Eleven angels escort you home, the war was lost without your bravery.