She Skull Spirit Stupid Stupid Sensuality Stands Stars Sky She Shoulder Sun Sword Saint Signature Sandwich Same Scrap Stroke Skin Structure Scratch Skull
Elastic Poem #6
by Blaise Cendrars
Translated by Ron Padgett
Noodz by Modigliani
She Has a Body on Her Dress
A woman’s body is as bumpy as my skull
Glorious
If you’re embodied with a little spirit
Fashion designers have a stupid job
As stupid as phrenology
My eyes are kilos that weigh the sensuality of women
Millard & Magoo & You Maybe & Yates & Me I Guess
My mother’s output, starred and pseudonymous, appeared regularly in one of those little, irregular periodicals so limited in readership that they might be called incestuous. Subscription was by invitation only, and contributors would go into a rage over a misplaced comma and brood for days if their poems were understood. All this called for constant and voluminous correspondence between my mother and the editor, about what I never knew, because the whole system was built along the lines of a secret society whose secrets were kept from everybody, including the membership.
– Millard Kaufman, Bowl of Cherries
I used to think this was bold. Now I wonder if it isn’t bitter? Maybe it’s both? Question mark?
Adam Robinson—
From the Christian Science Monitor:
International opinion has battered Israel in the aftermath of its commando raid on the flotilla of aid trying to break the Gaza blockade.
I had to read it twice, because I thought there was no way they’d allow so much slant rhyme in an editorial. Should journalists write rap lyrics more often or less rarely?
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