Tuesday, October 5, 2010

"ANOTHER ONE FOR THE CAMPFIRE"

[L.E. Leone's latest is a true bucolic!]

ANOTHER ONE FOR THE CAMPFIRE

I wish there was a word
for the look
on cows’ faces when
a person with a tuba
wanders into their field
of vision. The song

goes on and on and
is not, for a change,
about alfalfa, shit and sky

CHORUS:
See, the dance is in her eyes,
Love, the blood in her heart
“Just cause my tail is swishing flies
That don’t mean that I ain’t smart”

Cows, they know the cars
going by pulling trailers pulling
boats from a cloud in the sky,
although, true, cattle tend toward
hypochondria, thus the constant
chewing
on it. Line of rumination running
as (roughly) follows: Is there grass
between my teeth?
Worse? Whoa, do I have hardware
sickness??? Could this be it?
A corner
iron in my soup? Or a bent,
rusty, nail? Oh, Christ!

Oh & that’s a pretty pill, the magnet they
must swallow for a cure, the size
and weight of my vibrator,
taste of medicine, oof. Yet the one-man-marching-band
punk-rock tubist, never having
tried his hand at cowpoking, wouldn’t

couldn’t understand
the very particular flavor of fear his beautiful human
instrument hammers into their many
many stomachs

as sound assumes shape assumes
sound and the sun,
the sun glistens, as it has for, what, 5,500 years
and counting, off of hard, dented
brass

I wish there was a word
(REPEAT CHORUS)

L.E. Leone
© 2010
 

4 comments:

  1. Applause! Applause! I just love this. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I like the deft humor in the poem; the first stanza especially is reminiscent of a Far Side cartoon :) The fact that the cows have thoughts, that they don't just ruminate but actually ruminate makes it so cool too.

    And I think these lines especially are beautiful (and poignant):
    the very particular flavor of fear his beautiful human
    instrument hammers into their many
    many stomachs

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi HKatz: Thanks--the Far Side analogy is good--I didn't think of that when I read it, but it fits. I also liked the play on ruminate & was particularly struck by the "many/many stomachs" part!

    ReplyDelete

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