The Diary of Alexander Patience
29 MARCH, 10:20 p.m.
It is said by the wealthy West Coast
Americans that the sun in dark glasses
drives a foreign-make car through the heavens,
The East Coast, less critical, lives
in the slums of the moon. It is hard
to choose between the oranges soaring
the high colonic irrigation of the former,
and the vitreous vandyked brains of the latter.
The farmers, and their tractor cerebration,
connect us both. Lincoln might have said
that a civil war is further off than ever.
(Biography of Gil Orlovitz)
<Blazing Saddles> Now, who can argue with that? </Blazing Saddles>
The quote doesn’t exactly make me want to read more. Even if it’s intended as im(ex?)pressionist word-jazz, the riffs are stale. Maybe deliberately.
The only thing I liked was the “vitreous vandyked brains.” Reminded me of this.
28 MAY, 2:15 a.m.
At night a dog may bark at fate,
fumbling with a reconditioned reflex,
a drunken surly nerve used
by a housewife to hang her wash on,
or that humtight feeling men have
when the ghosts have gone on strike.
Keep the dog; he works the odd hours
when the freaks rape the angels
and run up pennants of torn condoms
waved on little sticks by babies
after the expresstrain pulling out
of the tunnel. Here, doggie doggie.