"The Beautiful Bowel Movement" [by John Updike]

Though most of them aren’t much to write about—
mere squibs and nubs, like half-smoked pale cigars,
the tint and stink recalling Tuesday’s meal,
the texture loose and soon dissolved—this one,
struck off in solitude one afternoon
(that prairie stretch before the late light fails)
with no distinct sensation, sweet or pained,
of special inspiration or release,
was yet a masterpiece: a flawless coil,
unbroken, in the bowl, as if a potter
who worked in this most frail, least grateful clay
had set himself to shape a topaz vase.
O spiral perfection, not seashell nor
stardust, how can I keep you? With this poem.

-- John Updike

Comments

[Laura Orem]

Ick.

[Stacey]

I know. It's in the category of "can't look, can't look away."

[jim cummins]

Sure, Stacey, but what happens when it occurs at work? At home you have some time to lavish on it, to regard and reflect, but at work someone is going to want the stall. I read one of Kingsley Amis' late works, THE OLD DEVILS, a while back; very darkly funny. One of the main characters--a poet, of course--suffers from constipation and would give his eyeteeth for a movement like the one described here. (By the way, what are eyeteeth?) He's a bit "windy" as the Brits say. Also, this reminded me of many old-school critics who disapproved of Joyce because he was always having his characters smell their own piss, especially in the morning. But isn't that the best time?

[Stacey]

OK Jim, there is a great history of preoccupation with evacuation. Perhaps an anthology in the making (no pun intended). Here's a little poem that I've known since college. It is apparently inscribed over an ancient Roman latrine though it has also been attributed to Byron:

O Cloacina, Goddess of this place,
Look on thy suppliants with a smiling face.
Soft,yet cohesive let their offerings flow,
Not rashly swift nor insolently slow.

[jim cummins]

God, I love girls who use the word "evacuation"! I know, I know: Celia poops, and all that. How about THE ED NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF SNAKE MANAGEMENT? I'll write the first poem, "The Garden of Barbara Eden."

[josh]

it's about poop.

[Peter C Melonas]

"With this poem" reminds me of Cavafy.