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POEM: Strings

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Strings

Perhaps Beethoven was wrong.
This may not be the best method
of organizing groups of tightly
wound cat intestines.

Or aren’t those used anymore?
That would be foolish —
there are certainly
too many cats.

Everywhere you look, they stare
at you with disdainful eyes
before turning away in disgust
to lick their own assholes.

There are too many people, too,
if we’re being honest. Of course,
most of us can’t lick our own nether
regions รขโ‚ฌโ€œ we need help for that.

But we’ve each got 25 or so feet of
intestines. We’re each like our own
string quartet, just waiting
for someone to play on us.

Published in Audio Poems Music My poems Poetry

10 Comments

  1. thanks for posting about your son’s open mic and for posting his poems! my boys refuse to play with poetry at all. i’m not pushing it b/c if i do, i know that’ll scare them away for sure! wonderful that he’s into it!

    one of the things i like about your work is how you take factoids and turn them into poems. this is a great example. ๐Ÿ™‚

    congrats again on the book! april’s been a big month for you!!!

  2. April has been very, very good. This week along has been amazing: Don’s reading on Wednesday, Dan’s reading on Thursday, five straight hours of poetry last night, then nine hours in the car today to see five more hours of poetry and get the book. Oy!

    And thanks for the comments about Bernie. I’ve never even suggested that he write. He just saw me doing it and decided one day that he wanted to do it, too. I took him to the store to get a nice notebook, and off he went. It was quite a rush to watch him up there last night.

  3. J. D. Mackenzie J. D. Mackenzie

    Jason,
    love this poem, an unlikely intersection (cats, stringed instruments, bums) but you make it work well.
    congrats on the book, these are truly amazing moments.
    JD Mackenzie

  4. I like the idea that I have music in my belly ๐Ÿ™‚

    • @Joanne: That’s a great phrase. I wish I’d used it!

  5. Interesting, provocative premise–nicely done. And congratulations on your book–that’s great!

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