Poetry
Levi’s Straus
When Tel Quel’s darling entertained
Jackbooted sons & daughters of
The Emperor of Opera Hats,
Louis Napoleon,
At the Socialist salon
In ’68,
His razor wit guillotined
The thinking from the feeling part.
Constructing a frequency chart I found
The words most often employed:
Langue, bouche, l’invisible
Lacan, libido, & repetition
Which in super-maoist semiotics
Seems to mean
Something like “rehearsal” as
The fiasco of ‘05
Was a dress rehearsal for
The reversals of
’17.
Below, the rabble & the paving stones
Inherited the street
While the Head of State ascended
Loudspeakers in the trees,
Choppers from a cloud
Or disappeared into a maze
Of plexiglas visors, shields.
Behind teargas barricades
My Fulbright days &nights
Overflowed with manifestoes,
Flesh-tinted pinups
Of revolutionary whores & heroes,
Color photos of napalm
& the atom bomb
Until I couldn’t tell ground zero from
Vagina, ear or anus
As I confessed, in a weak moment, to that prick,
Von Kramm,
Famous paperback & talkshow advocate
Of electroshock therapy
Gentially applied
In the defense of the aggressive tendencies
Of homo capitalismus, who is,
From my perspective as
Participant-observer in the race,
An innately nasty creature
& a human worm.
Years later,
Doing fieldwork in the Adirondacks
I discovered a Puertorican pearldiver
Flash his firehose – ca-rum-bah!
& on day reading Honey & Ashes on the can
Began an on-the-spot investigation into
The morphology of the hand
That blows the nose
& the hand that wipes
The shitty grin.
Contributor
L.S. AsekoffAskeoff has published two books of poetry. He directs the MFA Poetry Program at Brooklyn College.
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES
inSerial: part eleven
The Mysteries of Paris
by Eugène Sue, translated from the French by Robert Bononno
SEPT 2019 | Fiction
The following scene transpired in a brilliantly lit salon draped entirely in red. Rodolphe, dressed in a long dressing gown of black velvet, which further augmented his paleness, was seated before a large table covered with a rug.
Sons d'hiver, Maison Des Arts
By Martin LongleyAPR 2019 | Music
Sons d'hiver (Winter Sounds) has been running in Paris for almost three decades, presenting artists on the perimeter of jazz, usually with a pair of acts each evening, and taking up most of February. For the festival's last weekend (22nd/23rd) of its accustomed three-week run, Paris was basking in unseasonal sunshine, and spring sounds were already sprouting.
inSerial: part eight
The Mysteries of Paris
by Eugène Sue, translated from the French by Robert Bononno
MAY 2019 | Fiction
It was midday and the rain fell in torrents. The Seine, swollen by the continuous downpour, had risen to a dangerous height and flooded part of the wharf. From time to time, Rodolphe glanced impatiently at the toll gate. Finally, in the distance, he saw a man and woman advance behind the shelter of an umbrella. He recognized the Schoolmaster and the Owl.
inSerial: part thirteen
The Mysteries of Paris
By Eugène Sue, translated from French by Robert Bononno
DEC 19-JAN 20 | Fiction
Through the attentions of Murph and Rodolphe, who with some difficulty managed to calm his agitation, Chourineur returned fully to his senses after a long crisis. He found himself alone with Rodolphe in one of the rooms on the first floor of the butcher shop.
