Airscoop Dest’ny

[September 2013.]

 Airscoop Dest’ny
Life and Death Athwart Love’s Anvil

 A Poem in Vers Atroce
with Magic Lantern Slides

Irving Washington

* * *

Foreword

Must literature be intelligible?

Readers read, cryptographers encrypt, and writers should know the difference. An intelligibility requirement attaches of particular necessity to a literary work that purports to be a narrative. Airscoop Dest’ny stands in contradiction as a mélange so various in substance and kind as to defy coherency. From the poem’s first page, where one sees no need to begin, absurdities abound:

Irrelevant epigraphs; fabricated archaisms, lunatical capitalization, convoluted elisions, strophes and enjambments of such erratic character as to subvert articulation of however brief duration, pompous foreign intrusions and, as oddity’s dernier cri, running requests to a phantom projectionist. Of clinical interest is the poet’s avoidance of end-line punctuation, an OCD usage observable as well in the strophes’ prow-and-spearhead symmetry. Generally speaking, rhyme and meter are jejune and inept.

The poet’s “B’lovèd,” upon whose oft-invoked presence this interminable ramble turns – and turns and turns – is its most bathetic feature. So far as we are aware, Washington remains an involuntary celibate.

With regard to the many tasteless moments, as Airscoop Dest’ny is of interest as a case study, the editorial staff thought better of abridgment. Freedom of expression also entered our deliberations, along with the possibility of litigation. Modeled ineptly on vers libre, vers atroce stands as Washington’s ineffectual hedge against perceptions of ineptitude and, indeed, sanity. Should one choose to see the poem as a typographic error, one does little harm to its substance.

Lemmo Djoost, Ph.D
The Tower, Tübingen-on-Hudson

* * *

 Art is hinged from the top of art.
–Bark Frameworks, Inc.

The bat lives in a world painted in shades of its own voice.
—from Gordon Grice’s Bat Country

Every change of scene a delight!
—Scardanelli

* * *

1.

It jes’ don’ make no Diff’rence
waY out Here or Dere.

Dis-moi qui tu manges, et je dirai ce que tu es.⁴ Maman
So adored Carrots Carrots We tHerefore munch,
Temps perdu sav’ring – Slide, please –
whilst Tip

pY-Toe poised for HorseYhoofplops. Holla, hoopla, Bone-WearY Carroteer –
Vertebrae! CoccYx! – cottageward-bound, clippitY-clopzix
HowdY do, poop in a Shoe, &

out th’Door th’B’lovèd, She flew, Deferral ’pon Cæsura high piled, Eluci
dations likewise i’Tow, & so, MelpoMene, Art inagile two Ticks
slow Consequence marks atop Mount SuYa

¡Mia! ¡TuYa! ¡Falta de Pertinencia! D-D-Death! Add two curious – naY, gratui
tous – Spats, Wig, DerbY, Wagnerian smut (Brunhilda likes
Schlongs!), accessorized Cane, dental Gold
i’Silence veiled,

th’EntiretY, Euterpe, subsuMed to a Calm deeper still, to la Musica
de TranquilitY in clamMY, clam’rous Clacton
-on-Sea, to la Musica

de Bivalvoli, inap
posite utter
lY

like Flatulence in Tunics, like SpeecHes plump with Contentlessness
T’th’Winds Poesía CongruitY tosses – Slide please –
Moi-mêMe, Irving plus pur, Air

scoop aHelming, Aspens aquaking, Bedlinens Line
-drYing, tHeir Secrets thrilling th’ÆtHer It
self! Poesía a Moonbeam kneads as
I, Belovèd, am needing

You, MY fragrant EdelWeiss, MY Pampas Succulent sav’rY. Mine Stro
pHes be tHeY, saYest, diSheveled? Well, so too beest tHese
Tides incoming! Merdelets de la Nuit, saltY
Snot, Tides incoming & Poesía
n-n-necrotica, Here unkempt
tHere stone dead,
Smidgen

senescent, Naught plus Less, and all of this in Mufti murkY, Finials fungal on
Maidens low-slung, particularlY She of tHe Vine-ripened Matrices
as quite AnotHer, a Touch bottom-heavY (O touchY Bottom
HeavenlY!) sees in settling down tHe WaY,
AnotHer, furth

Er, a Gala to host, & ’pon MY Soul, Here’s a fartHer AnotHer
Yet arcaner – Slide, please – a sleek Belgian Belle
in languid Intimations drapt

in Poet’s brash Lines wi’troWeled-on Walloon Scorn.

           This Melancholia, NowHere is its Match t’be found,
like a Flemish Curse I haul it around, a Liver aslosh
in Sauce CaYenne, seeking Applause
I misspell Applesauce, canst
believe it? To Don

keYs pin Tails? To Apices, Ups? Bulls to Bull’s-EYes? Perps to Perpetu
itY? & dare crY Whoops! as Florists snarl ‘Death to plastic Blooms
via Poesía’s how-to-assist-tHee, Cow-of-tHe-Sea, i.e., Mana

tee, th’Poet grimacing i’a perplexing Dog-ear’d Manner wi’Eph
eMera befuddled, Appendices, Resemblances &
tYpographic Charivari. C’est Moi encore
Skin

-Slough bespattered (small-scale Debris), MondaY’s blunt LaundrY
Matters swarthY, Squalor sub-stellar, for Nadirs a ProclivitY as
fearsoMe Kali poops on & about One’s Ingle
nook. Slide, please

One draws Breath athletical & t’th’PeripHerY bellows, ¡Dios Me libre de la vida
de un testiculo!⁵ Think o’tHese Lines, Muses e’er acute, as Aspects
o’an Aspect o’a crYptical Premise’s aMetrical Toot
at th’Peak o’a Turbulence, GrYphon Pelts
an Irving parades dripping
Portents and BewilderMent red
olent. Slide, please

[continuation…]

[Photo from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Anemoscopi.JPG]