Big Mama Blogs

By Dennis Schmitz   

     squeezed, rag-strained for the waxy
alcohol,
sipped for mortal fire:
the coatless man drinks it,
tasting equally rapture

& a priori death,
his few teeth coating & his breath,
when he swallows it,
burning down to a mere appetite

for more breath.
Crying out, having put his tongue to it,
he is immune
like the literalist porcupine

at last free to eat the toad
he’s surprised himself by catching,
devouring first the toad’s poison

gland, lathering his face toxic.
The man thrashes
the wet municipal lawn, rolls
against a camphor tree
the rain has thrashed into perfumed

wakefulness, coating
but not diluting his man-smell
for the park cop who hunkers
over him, a nightstick’s length away,
his leather cop-harness creaking

as he flicks snails
off the sweet creases in the man’s face.

Every true poet is a monster. He destroys people and their speech. His singing elevates a technique that wipes out the earth so we are not eaten by worms. The drunk sells his coat. The thief sells his mother. Only the poet sells his soul to separate it from the body that he loves.

By Walt Whitman

Whoever you are, holding me now in hand,
Without one thing, all will be useless,
I give you fair warning, before you attempt me further,
I am not what you supposed, but far different.

Who is he that would become my follower?
Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections?

The way is suspicious—the result uncertain,
     perhaps destructive;
You would have to give up all else—I alone would
     expect to be your God, sole and exclusive,
Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting,
The whole past theory of your life, and all conformity
      to the lives around you, would have to be abandon’d;
Therefore release me now, before troubling yourself
      any further—Let go your hand from my shoulders,
Put me down, and depart on your way.

Or else, by stealth, in some wood, for trial,
Or back of a rock, in open air,
(For in any roof’d room of a house I emerge not—
     nor in company,
And in libraries I lie as one dumb, a gawk, or
     unborn, or dead,)
But just possibly with you on a high hill—
     first watching lest any person, for miles around,
     approach unawares,
Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach
     of the sea, or some quiet island,
Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you,
With the comrade’s long-dwelling kiss, or
     the new husband’s kiss,
For I am the new husband, and I am the comrade.

Or, if you will, thrusting me beneath your
     clothing,
Where I may feel the throbs of your heart, or
     rest upon your hip,
Carry me when you go forth over land or sea;
For thus, merely touching you, is enough—
     is best,
And thus, touching you, would I silently sleep
     and be carried eternally.

But these leaves conning, you con at peril,
For these leaves, and me, you will not understand,
They will elude you at first, and still more
    afterward—I will certainly elude you,
Even while you should think you had unquestionably
    caught me, behold!
Already you see I have escaped from you.

For it is not for what I have put into it that I
   have written this book,
Nor is it by reading it you will acquire it,
Nor do those know me best who admire me and
   vauntingly praise me,
Nor will the candidates for my love, (unless
   at most a very few,) prove victorious,
Nor will my poems do good only—they will do
   just as much evil, perhaps more;
For all is useless without that which you may
   guess at many times and not hit—that which I
   hinted at;
Therefore release me, and depart on your way.