Borrowing a term from T.S. Eliot, poet and scholar Merrill Cole writes on duality and connection, the link between the poetic, the political…and peanut butter cups.
—
Objective Correlative
The male me, the one with
the bushy blond hair,
swaggers across the sidewalk, bopping to
his huge ear-pad headphones.
Self-satisfaction surrounds him
like a halo.
Anyone could see it.
It’s an automatic thumbs-up.
Just at the right moment,
my female side dances in, from
the opposite direction,
her healthy chestnut tresses
bouncing to quite a different beat.
She’s American as the Sun Maid raisin girl,
a sweet fib
about backbreaking labor, oblivious
behind her own ear pads, a hymn
to joy.
The collision is destiny, the promise
that mutual attraction
of the approved sort
begins with arbitrary violence.
Hey,
it’s a natural process, even if
initially misunderstood:
“You got
your politics in my poetry!”
“You got your poetry
on my politics!”
Deus ex machina, a shop clerk in an apron
hands the indignant pair
a tasty compromise formation.
You go,
polyglycerol polyricinoleate!
Let the dance begin, tertiary
butyl hydroquinone!
All this makes 1-800-SueU4Pain superfluous,
but
thank you for your concern.
Alas, it’s not the 80s anymore.
The tv, flat
as an underwear model’s abdomen,
has burnt through its toxins.
No pain, no gain.
Two great tastes that taste
great together: the bald propaganda
I couldn’t write, muscular, handsome,
so retro in his black Doc Martens,
and a pretty little peanut butter cup,
actually a prophecy, yes, an infinitely gentle,
infinitely suffering thing.
***
Originally Published in Creative Resistance (March 2014)
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