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« "Four Hundred Thousand Words of Select Literary Entertainment for the American Sailor on the Water or in the Air" (by Laura Orem) | Main | Time for a Smoke, West Broadway, March 23, 2008 »

March 24, 2009

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Ick.

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

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?

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.

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."

it's about poop.

"With this poem" reminds me of Cavafy.

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That Ship Has Sailed
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"Lively and affectionate" Publishers Weekly

Radio

I left it
on when I
left the house
for the pleasure
of coming back
ten hours later
to the greatness
of Teddy Wilson
"After You've Gone"
on the piano
in the corner
of the bedroom
as I enter
in the dark


from New and Selected Poems by David Lehman

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