Monday, June 20, 2011

cadaver dogs, don't you feel it's dangerous to want we're losing time hurry hurry

For Brown Dog, Poobah, Tom Dooley, Joe, Ginger, Teddy, Crazy Legs, Little Cat, Kelly, Bucket, Gideon, Baby, Ma, Smoky Joe, Fledge, Candy, Beethoven, Max Headroom, Pantages, Joe, Little out-of-the-wall, Simon, Shantie, Jeeves, Lloyd, Butch, Daphne, Zoe, Duncan, Buddy, Thelma, Megan, Winky, Klöie, Ophelia, Lars, Cruiser, Yogi, Bantu, Paris the Genius Cat and Orlando


That's from the apparent dedication to the book, and I think we can assume these are all pets. I'm including it now just in case it's relevant in future poems.

The title immediately brings to me the language of infomercials, oddly, but I'm also reminded of Eliot's "HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME" from The Wasteland. I didn't get anything further out of that association though, it just made me think of it.

Anyway, not to lean too heavily on the title, the larger theme here seems to be danger and desire. Let me go ahead and bring up the dedication above, and this quote from the end of the poem:

paris the genius cat is in the yard stalking the bird
his heart clapping so fast
it's become                                               its own animal.


I think that I can take this to mean that Loudon may be the actual narrator of this poem. If so, it's further autobiographical in that she brings up one of her ex-husbands (my second husband whose name I stole / he of the golden body hair quiet as a pet).

Also, lets not ignore that remarkable last line.

I don't have much to say about the meaning of the poem, I think it's just danger and desire, as I said, but what's remarkable here is how she arranges this with such a collage of suggestive and horrific imagery. I do mean horror. Here:

my house drowns
I crawl naked toward you on the floor
white and dark meat the dark
full of blood


Thank you, Rebecca. I think I'll go watch Naked Lunch and eat spaghetti for dinner now.

7 comments:

  1. Yah, wow, Stephen King meets lady poet. I'd like to read that poem in its entirety, went looking for it online, but couldn't locate it. Any chance you could provide a link? And yes, I'd like to read it, whilst watching open heart surgery and eating spagetti, which I have done btw (medical secretary, ho hum).

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  2. Oh, I didn't think it was on the web, thus the private message I sent you, but now that I've found this, this will work better since other people can read it:

    http://books.google.com/books?id=IZNmZpjlGvoC&lpg=PA13&ots=1aUnnBd8ga&dq=%22don't%20you%20feel%20it's%20dangerous%20to%20want%20we're%20losing%20time%20hurry%20hurry%22&pg=PA150#v=onepage&q=%22don't%20you%20feel%20it's%20dangerous%20to%20want%20we're%20losing%20time%20hurry%20hurry%22&f=false

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  3. Actually, er, that link appears to be an ever so slightly different version than the one in the book. Strange.

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  4. Well, that was certainly an adrenaline rush. That pet/welt slant rhyme is sticking in my brain for some reason I can't quite parse.

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  5. Thanks a lot, guys, I'm not going to be able eat spaghetti now for a while.

    And Featherless, I wonder if it is not because it can so easily become wet/pelt?

    I'm digging how you brought the book's dedication in Aric, that made me laugh and I want a pet named Max Headroom! There is some spooky ass sex crimes going on in here, though, I must say. When I am reading her I tend to have these moments of noticing my body. Like I can taste blood in this case. It is not pleasant, but it is extraordinary.

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  6. Thanks for the link and the pm w/ the altered version. Its interesting that different versions are floating out in cyberspace, makes you wonder if she did it or someone just had an earlier draft that they posted. I think i like the addition here, which I bracketed:

    my house drowns {in sex}
    I crawl naked toward you on the floor
    white and dark meat the dark
    full of blood

    I caught the connotation before of the dark meat as corpuscles flooded and engorged sexually, but the addition makes it seem a bit more sexually charged and dangerous.

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  7. I had just the opposite reaction to that difference, oddly. I liked it better with the ambiguity, in part because I think it hits harder when the reader works out the idea, and also because it allows for more surreal, playful imagery along the way.

    Thank you all for the additional comments, discussion. I promise I'll catch up here soon.

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