DAVID KIRBY
Ode to the Bomb-Test Era
in high school
Sugar Boy says
why don’t we invent a product called RapidSex™
and when I say
how exactly would that work Sugar
he says it’d be an aerosol spray containing an aphrodisiac
a lubricant
progesterone as well as a spermicide
alcohol in an amount equal to that contained in two mixed drinks
a variety of aromas
such as mint piña colada and other popular car air freshener scents
and a coloring agent so your partner can see it
and not think you’re trying to put one over on them
definitely a coloring agent
but one that has pleasing colors
or different colors for different moods
a sunny yellow for first dates
rose or coral for the next few
mauve or lavender when things get serious
after that
well you wouldn’t need it after that
we’d have to come up with another product
Sugar Boy and I were coming of age at a time
when teens were still miniature adults
when the two college kids meet for lunch in J. D. Salinger’s story Franny
they drink martinis
eat escargots
and talk about European literature
doing their best to imitate adult sophistication
and on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand
the enthusiastic boppers who appeared on TV screens all over America
adhered to a strict dress code
no shorts or slacks or tight sweaters for the girls
and neckties with either a sweater or jacket for the fellows
nobody dressed that way in real life
said Dick Clark
but it made the show acceptable to adults
who were frightened by the teen-age world and their music
our teen years also saw the birth of rocket science
the racial integration of major league baseball
and the GI bill of rights
the interstate highway system sprang up
as did Holiday Inn motels and fast-food restaurants
the Corvette and Mad magazine
the Abby and Ann Landers advice columns
disposable diapers
the telephone answering machine
all this and more appeared as the face America changed forever
why not RapidSex™ then
though at this point I’m wondering if I should have called this poem
Ode to RapidSex™ and then I think probably not
yet if anyone recalls this poem at all
they’re likely to remember it as that RapidSex™ poem
the same way I once wrote a poem about cinnamon toast
that for one reason or the other I called The Afterlife
though when people ask for it at readings
they always ask if I’ll read that cinnamon toast poem
ours was the era of bomb testing too
of those annihilating flashes over Los Alamos
the Marshall Islands
a desert in Nevada
it was the era of the first rock
of Elvis Jerry Lee Otis Richard Chuck Fats Buddy
each as bright as the sun itself
and together the most powerful people on the planet
even if they’d only made one record
we were somebody because of them
we were everybody
Ode to the F-Word
BARBARA COMES BACK from yoga class
& I say what did Julia say today
& she says Julia said the floor
is your best teacher
& I think boy is that ever true
& remember how my friend Victor the film director
told me about the dream he’d had
when he hadn’t made a movie in ten years
& was going to start shooting his new one
the next day & in his dream he heard a voice say
don’t forget to sleep on the floor
& when I say what does that mean Victor
he puts his hand out flat & low and says keep it real.
Agha Shahid Ali says the problem with young artists
is that they haven’t spent ten years
getting something right
so they don't trust the process.
Once I took a samurai sword-fighting lesson
and my sensei gave me a t-shirt
& when I asked the interpreter what it said
he said it says more mat less chat.
Your job is to create awe, young artists!
This takes patience.
Everyone has a different sense of awe:
some people will never forget
the time they saw a pole vaulter clear a bar
set at what seemed like an impossible height
while others remember the first time
a waiter set before them a bowl of bouillabaisse
or just a sandwich
a baguette with ham but jam and sharp mustard
this time instead of cheese.
Awe takes you out of yourself:
suddenly you’re just not there.
It’s your job to lead your listener
or viewer or reader to the highest level of awe possible
& that means putting before them
something they don’t yet know about,
have never even suspected the existence of—
think Keats first looking into Chapman’s Homer.
There’s no high or low:
it coud be Robert Johnson’s “Love in Vain”
or Mozart’s “A Little Night Music,”
Emily Dickinson’s “I Started Early—Took My Dog”
or “Casey at the Bat.”
Think new, think better, think different.
Think Taha Mohammed Ali,
who says poetry is like billiards,
you strike here to hit there.
Sleep on the floor.
Read Van Gogh’s biography.
One more thing:
artists as different as Whitman & Mingus
put out everything they had on the floor
of their apartments in a form of housekeeping
for which dictionaries have no name
yet in the Chicago State Mental Hospital
if a patient says something irrational
the orderlies are instructed to say
hey you just said something crazy.
What’s wrong with crazy?
Poison’s not bad says Keith Richards.
It’s a matter of how much. The floor teaches you
when to do something & when to let it go,
when it matters & when it doesn’t.
Media tycoon Kirk Kerkorian told Harris Katleman
to take over MGM Television
& when Katleman said
I don't know how to run a TV studio
Kerkorian said neither do I
& then he said you can't fall off the floor.
Trust the process, young artists.
Be patient and a little nuts.