Sunday, November 15, 2009

Brenda Hillman & More Beer Poetry

Hillman might be a great poet, but at least one of her speakers has bad taste in beer!...in honor of her Willamette University reading on Wednesday (as reprinted in Nerve - likely nsfw, please note!):

Male Nipples
by Brenda Hillman

— not utter, not
useless, the uselessness of desire, the slight
depression around the center

— When the motorcycle boy would light
His cigarette, I longed
For the flat nipples, the scars, the contralto 'when'

and after you saw that the flower
of hell is not hell,
but a flower —

How the beautiful boys' nipples in the pool
In Arizona looked
"underwatery" — pennies which have been thrown in

— and after you saw
that the flower of hell
was not one bit hell, but a flower —

convince him to take only
his shirt off. They were, well, one
was brown and one was like the inside of a story —

— the ones of divers,
how they point down under the wetsuits:

when I first put
my tongue on his (having decided
he is not my mother) —

Oh, the bodies I loved were very tired.
I liked their skin. And
I was not sad animal no graveyard —

And after you saw that desire
is hell, that the flower of hell
is not hell but a flower, well,

— So I told the little hairs
around his nipple: lie flat! and they did,
like a campfire, without the stories —

those of soldiers in the desert war and often
his left one tastes metallic as in
childhood, when I licked my brother's BB gun

Kept not finishing
people I loved.
I tried, — but.

The top lip of a Corona beer
is about the size
of one of his —

And after you saw that the flower
of hell is desire, the almost, well,
you still had desire —

— So the moon came up
pink tonight
like one of what had been missed

"Male Nipples" reprinted from Loose Sugar,
© 1999, Wesleyan University Press.

3 comments:

  1. re: Beer Poem

    This morning I remember a poem I learned in the late 1950s, when I was a lad, from Mad Magazine. I have updated the references in the poem remembered.

    With apologies to Joyce Kilmer and acknowledgement of Mad Magazine’s original publication.

    I think that I shall never hear
    a poem as lovely as a beer.

    The stuff that Venti’s Bar has on tap
    with golden base and foamy cap.

    Poems are made by fools I fear
    but only Fort George can make a beer.

    For disclaimers see:
    http://blog.ventiscafe.com/?p=1031
    :jbx

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    Replies
    1. If I recall it correctly the entire poem was:

      I think that I shall never hear
      a poem as lovely as a beer.
      The brew Joe's Bar has on tap
      With a golden base and a snowy cap.
      The foamy stuff I drink all day,
      Till my memr'y melts away.
      Poems are made by fools I fear,
      But only (Schlitz) can make a beer.

      (The brand can be changed but a one syllable name works best).

      A Beer Nut

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