As we suffer through yet another Bush Administration, Bean Newton's observations in the uncharacteristically colloquial "AmeriCo, 2.0" seem utterly apt.
Things staying the same has done little to lessen the sadness that this year marks the sixth anniversary of Newton's death. His experimental "Camelbak" excoriating corporate America still seems fresh, however. While far from immune to trends and fashions, the world of poetry is slow to adopt new ones, and so Newton's use of separate but inter-related columns in this poem, like "AmeriCo, 2.0" written half a decade before his death, is just now beginning to gain acceptance in some of today's more edgy literary journals. -- E.W. Wilder
AmeriCo, 2.0
Get yer big, slobbery dog off'n me.
It's a humpin' my leg, droolin'
all over'n my shoes. The blasted thang's
flea-bitten coat is sheddin' off in patches
on my brand new blue jeans. Yer big ole Texas
range mutt is footy-printin' up my floor, heel nippin,'
and his big-ass ropey ol' tail threatens to wag
all my wife's Precious Moments nicknacks right
off the divan.
He's alreddy swallered her Snowbabies.
It just ain't fair,
that
big ol' bruiser
of a part-oil-derrick/part St. Bernard should
come wragglin' in here and piss all over my carpet, lay
turds on the fine upholstery of all my La-Z-Boy
recliner's incline planes, and have the gall
to barf up his Ken-l-Ration right
on the coffee table. Damn it all! Send it back
to Midland or Kennefuk before the real hurtin'
starts. Dog like that gonna gnaw off a feller's
leg at night just to feel the bone crunch.
It's like livin' yer own country song.
Camelbak
| That’s
the name of a sporting goods company. They provide "hydration systems" for back- packers and hikers and rock climbers and the like. Like most companies, they can't be trusted to spell correctly. Spelling well means you're not cool, and not cool means no- body and nobody wants that, not |
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even a Camel's back. They couldn't have called themselves "Humpbak," after all, because "hump" has naughty connotations, though camels actually have humps on their backs, where they store tourists. After all, it's been years since the trike craze: steel- tube-framed, fiberglass-bodied cruisers with three wheels--the back, ur, the "bak"--a VW, the front a chopper. The Humpback, as I recall, was a brand of trike. It was sin-ugly, but you could build one at home in a weekend. But they were all ugly: the riders, the "old ladies" on the bak, the old hempbacks or humpers or humpees, however the case may have been. These days, it's all factory- custom, as America: if you want something done, you pay somebody else to do it, some strung-out 300 pound relic who built his own in 1978, an old hippie, drug-runner, biker, what-have-you. You supply the VW. |
There was no water involved: the spool drained out its context on the hot-contested arena floor. Hot Dog fumes and popcorn and beer wafted toward the ceiling or skyward or heaven-ward or what- have-you with the smoke from a thousand pre-rolled joints. You dare not roll your own in the arena, forbid the coming of security or conning of the right for left a one-two ultrafist combo or shot of pepper spray to the eyewholes, the soulholes should be if windows they are. The Champ expired in a glyph of pre- doused terminology; of pre- condoned, predigested sputum of multi-track career and his Long Life (7yrs.) in the Ring. For awhile he was Lord of, but then the women/steroids/money drained from his sack of flesh the blood/pus combination now drooling toward The Count and Greg "The Spool" Grosso breathed his last career high. Later, poured into a limo, he'd ghost his way into the long ink. |