Poem of the Subterranean Buddah

Abstract

Poem of the Subterranean Buddah Zachary Chartkoff I. & they tore off my wings& they threw down my crown& my leather was no more. last night the poet was down at the faux french cafe laughing her head offat her male counterparts. "listen to me! listen to me!" she staggers about in her hiked skirt,"theeeze poets, i tell ya, are crazy!theze poets are dead & wild-eyed& think they screw god every night.theze poets are all anal retentive, repressed, always bichin' about zen death erotics; ol' vagina envious suppressed kept down tied up [End Page 109] quelled quashed spanked poetzzz . . ." II. & they tore off my wings & they threw down my crown & my leather was no more.the poet howled at the passing students heading off for ancient precalculus, intro. to western arts, bodhisattvas & zygotes. they blankly stare at this paper goddess—not the male pseudonym. tomorrow the poet says we should march outside up down the italian embassy in protest, "cuz' they won't let can't let cicciolina over for the latterday sex holidays." jive ass soft flesh subterranean buddah III. "& they tore off my wings & they threw down my crown [End Page 110] & my leather was no more," muttered the poet in her rusty tone as we walked through the rain & over grey cobblestones that led to swarrny cafes— —the halfnote, the underground, the mod hatter's poetry party. yokahuna says that bad luck comes in threes; the poet's work returns from the publishers unmarked, not even folded right, someone reading each during lunch with one ear screwed to the phone, her finest dreams sent out into the void & not one "sentimental" scrawled in red. tonight the venus in furs seems like a pale, sleepless thing. her hair is suddenly asymmetrical. while her head is still shaved from her depression, the left side blooms again, a cascade of black down to her ass, onto the street & away. away. i do not think she can discover america in her dreams. she mutters female eroticism is dead. you can only write so many poems of your excess—so many words covering your junki past . . . finding [End Page 111] your sartori between your second finger & clitoris, years of cheap wine & yesterdays pipe smoke. yes, she did have the power of the wyrd once & on her jacket she wrote her poems floating in cowhide abstractions & her wings shouted steel + visions, yes, her eyes were so clear that it made her words strange & delicious. [End Page 112] Footnotes This poem originally appeared in Red Cedar Review, Vol. 29 Iss. 1, 1992-1993. Copyright © 2011 Michigan State University Board of Trustees