(xxiii)


My dear Ms. ___ :

It was my good fortune this Sunday last to have been invited to a party at the home of M. D. Hoye, noted literary critic and ginswilling rake. The celebration was put to anticipate the 226th birthday of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, an early bluesman, Thus promptly at eight I put my travellin’ shoes on and motivated my sweet young body on over to the dilapidated slum household where Dr. Hoye makes his residence. As always, I carried with me my typewriter, the better to record any fleeting bit of repartee—who could say what, a knock-knock joke in Polish notation, some ingenious variation on the theme of the travelling salesman, perhaps a penetrating critique of neoScholasticism—that might, in this atmosphere pregnant with humid wit, precipitate. And it was in fact fortunate on this occasion that I did so, for no sooner had I negotiated the heap of bodies at the front door and entered the living room—tastefully decorated in early Salvation Army, with haunting overtones of Medieval Polynesian garret—than I discovered, to my surprise, my good friend and former employer ___, crouched brooding over a Margarita. “Ah Catrina,” he said, “would we met in happier circumstance.” But when I inquired, what might stand cause to this doleful mood, he would only shake his head and make the enigmatic reply, “She wouldn’t know a sensitive, poetic type if he bit her on the ass.” He would make no further comment, and so I retired to the kitchen, where a lively circle had congregated to weigh the issues of the day. There we debated for I do not know how long the influence—sadly neglected, in contemporary criticism—of Heraclitus on Big Joe Williams, the theme of analyticity in the love-odes of the Vienna Circle, phenomenology in the pornographic cinema, and other subjects no doubt of equal import of which, alas, my apprehension grew hazier as the case of Tequila was diminished.

The discussion waned as the members of our group retired to puke their guts out or slump senseless to the dining-room rug, and eventually Dr. Hoye and I found ourselves the only participants near enough consciousness to stagger again into the livingroom, where the couch lay unoccupied and the television was on. It did not surprise me to discover ___ lying insensible on the floor, apparently the victim (finally) of an attempt to mix Tequila, Triple Sec, and lime juice directly on his palate, as the empty bottles next the body testified. Shaking our heads, we settled in to watch a Western.

Randolph Scott had just been elected sheriff when, to my astonishment, ___ began to stir. Expecting the worst, I looked about for a wastebasket, but as his eyes fluttered open and his codpiece twitched in that manner familiar to me from days gone past, I recognized the signs of composition consummated. Nor was I disappointed. “Catrina!” he exclaimed (thickly); “Take a letter!” Still he did not begin, but lay a moment longer in supine reflection. “Ah, Rhonda, Rhonda...” he sighed. Then with no further preliminary, he dictated this lament:


If I Gave My Heart To You

Her climate’s frigid; thus it will
Vex naked sentiments with chill
And shiv’ring; her cold attitude
Turns unclothed word to goosebumped nude
‘Gainst her reception’s sleet and pour
I must bundle it in metaphor.

Of clothing, faded denim’s best
Most comfortable, and easiest
To Boogie in. Alike it’s told
The best of metaphors are old.

Thus cliche brings a warmer glance
To words repelled, had they no pants.
—So much for the deductive art:
I think I’ll offer her my heart.

Alas, the sentimental gland
At whose sweet pap this trope has sucked
Had naught to say of critics, and
The line’s scarce weaned ere it is fucked.

No sooner is it trotted out
Than diddled by the Dork of Doubt.
(Behavior hardly laudatory;
I think this must be Statutory.)

The sentiment, though, bears no taint
‘Twas innocent. The harlot’s paint
That metaphor’s responsible.
“I’ll give my heart.” Impossible.

But fuck the critic. ‘Tis only
A natural necessity
That dictates this, and Poesy’s
Allowed other modalities.

‘Tis physiological violence
But granted my poetic license.
(Or something like. I’d better term it
My poetical learner’s permit.)

So try again. It is a start.
I’ll say, that I’ll give her my heart.
An odd conceit, this figure is;
But let it stand, hypothesis.

Though still the question frets my wit:
Whatever would she do with it?

Adopt it as a paperweight?
Or shift-knob for her Eighty-Eight?
Cloak with it undainty sneeze?
Or serve it stuffed with anchovies?
Lament it in blue-noted song?
Punt it away on fourth and long?

“Tis sure she’s room enough for it;
In her chest, forty such would fit.
(Though this may not be where she stores
Such things; I’ve not been in her drawers.)

’Tis certain though, the proper place
To mount it, were her trophy-case.

Or could it serve as remedy
For some disheart’ning malady?
‘Tis true, she suffers from a constipated wit
And thus no wonder that she doesn’t give a shit
So gladly then my heart to her I’d give
Thought I it were Love’s Laxative.
—Thought I this so; but heretofore
I’ve seen her twist this metaphor
And my poor heart, dismayed and crushed
From her Affection’s restroom flushed.

She might attempt to analyze its sense
By treatment with acid Indifference
Through Careless goggles watch the preparation
Afroth above the flame of Adoration.
Beneath the hood of Apathy
Expostulation boils away
Unheeded; thus she’d contemplate
My Blues, as they precipitate:

Sad kinda blues
When your baby make you crawl
Ah, Sad kinda blues
When your baby make you crawl
Oh she treat you low down and evil now
Make you feel ‘bout two foot small.

Sad kinda blues
When your woman treat you mean
Sad kinda blues
When your woman treat you mean
Ah she flay you with derision
Worst woman you ever seen.

I went down to McDonald’s
I bought you a Big Mac
You said you had a headache, now I
Want my money back.
Sad kinda blues
When your baby treat you ill
Ah, she bring you to the water
But won’t let you drink your fill.

You’re so fine-looking baby
It like to make me swoon
I see you walkin’ down the street, and, Ah
Come in Rangoon.
Sad kinda blues
When you’re woman think you’re trash
Ah she raise your expectations
Just so she can see them crash.

(But this analysis has yet to fall:
Meanwhile my heart’s presevred in alcohol.)

What nonsense this, to give my heart;
Though then, what better to impart?
One cannot help but speculate
What other organ were appropriate:

I could of course give her my hands;
Perhaps she’d mount them fondly on her glands
Or not; more likely it would pass
She’d use my palms, to wipe her ass.

Though then again I might do best in
Donation of my large intestine;
Then should I also lend my heart
Collaterally, I’d get a fart.

My bladder’s case is best of all;
Inflated, it’s a volleyball.

My head, perhaps? There’s wrong in this;
Though grammar’s right; it surely is
Absurd, should one suppose instead
That I could say, I’ll give her head.

I harbor doubts that she would love it
Though she could make a cushion of it
For which her chair’s the proper place
Then she’d be sitting on my face.

Again, I have here, dangling, loose
An organ with no present use
Though such gifts hinder self-abuse.
Still then, I might attempt to champion
Its use as an organic tampon.

My teeth? the question must be met
Where would she mount a second set?
A second query’s quickly quilled:
What cavity would she want filled?
And third (these numbers easily summed)
What would it be, that she’d want gummed?
—Ah, what teething ring can sublimate
That feckless urge to masticate?

My gonads? But then, I suppose
She could be belted round with those
Had all of her admirers
So granted what they would were hers.
To lend superfluosities
Were bearing muscles to Steve Reeves.

My nose she never need divulge
On her, who’d note another bulge?
And if she found a place for it, well then:
There’d be a part of her I’d stuck a finger in.

(I think I may regret that trope
I’ll wash my cartridge out with soap.)

—Ah, this quest was barren from the start
I’ll give this up; I’ll give my heart.

Though still the vexing question, Shit,
I wonder what she’d do with it?

The natural interpretation
Would be, that it’s a Valentine
One would suppose, Infatuation
Traditionally had this for sign.
Though I don’t know how she’d take mine.
And guess it, that she’d rather money
Or gumdrops from the Easter Bunny.

As cannibals devour the hearts
(Or boobs, should they consume a wench)
Of enemies, to gain their parts
She might eat mine, to gain my stench.
Which I acquired in turn, of course
By dining on my wasted shorts.

Why do I entertain these fears?
Surely she’d be moved; she’d grant it
Passionate asylum; plant it
And water it thrice daily with her tears.
But no; it’s something I’m not sure in
I think more likely she’d use urine.

I care a fart
For consequence: I’ll give her my heart.
And should she even coldly fail
To post it by returning mail
This will not prove to me it’s lost
But only that she’s carefully tossed
It into a safe place she mentions
As fittest for my love’s attentions:
To give my heart so was but seeming rash;
I need but go, and pluck it from her trash.



Having delivered himself of this, he was quiet for a moment. But then he raised himself on one elbow and seemed to begin again:

“Now, let’s play Ions In Solution. You be the little girl-ion, and I’ll be the little boy-ion... .”

But with this last conceit his consciousness expired. Dr. Hoye and I arranged his limbs comfortably and left a garbage bag and a glass of Alka-Seltzer by his side, and retired to the porch to talk politics. — The rest, Ms. ___, is silence.


— Yours, etc.