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Page 247

What could be more masculine than the pen (penis
circumcised by cutting off its is, but obviously it is ‘is)? --
pent emblem of my always being glad to see you.
What could be more eternally feminine
than the ever-receptive blank page? There I spill
my ink out in mask-you-lines and ask-you-lines,
scudding over the pale surface, afloat on cloud feminine.

Appropriately, my current incarnation (a word that seems
to describe the United States, which has as many cars
as humans – an in-car-nation) – this body battered
its blunt head out of mother into ethereal other on April 4;
that is, I first sucked air as an Aries, the ram that Daddy's ding-dong
popped (shebop shebop) into rama-Mama's ding-dong – and wouldn't
AirEEZE be a good name for a deodorant?
How I do roll on! (If I sucked air five times, would I be,
pardon my French, more succinct?) And I'd like to clear
the air: If I am Ram, then YOU, blank page or lover or
Reader (if the you fits, wear it) – you must be Ewe!
(Why be sheepish about it?)

I'm a battering ram, a dithering ram (hear here my
dizzy dithyrambs!), and Ewe are the rampage I'm on
as, randomly, I access your memories and mammaries,

and yet, I too am ewe (that's funny, I don't LOOK ewish),
for each of my assertions is followed by "but"
(or qualification), homonym (not honeymoon) of butt, the act
of horny ram, the pride of dewy ewe – oh to be you with
the fortuity of two T's (B-U-T-T)! "But" is spelled
B-U-T, pronounced "beauty", another qualification,
which, in females, is often equated to tits (I with two T's
or Tutti's most Frutti) and ass – or butt (your choice,
esses or tease (fanny tease, fanny tease – all is fanny tease,
so saith ecclesi-ass-tease), but always, like breasts or buns,
always double, though called quadruple (hind-quarters) --
because they droop? When a woman approaches,
I am greeted by her tatas, but the butt waves "Ta ta!" --
tits and ass, another assertion followed by a butt.

You see where this is leading, don't you? I hope
SOMEONE does. I'm just following the words.
(Puns lead me to Joycean happy funnies.)
Can I be you with two T's and tea for two?
Am I ram? Am I ewe? Am I I? We are so many!
Who needs ewes and rams when I can count myself
to fall asleep? And if that fails, I can always count
on poetry.

Notes: If you don't care for puns, this is a page you should have skipped or maybe already did.

Line 2: "But obviously it is ‘is" – that is, it is HIS, the Cockney his (‘is) (and "Cockney" is appropriate in this context [not that cocks have knees, but they are also called "joints", so I say the English language is asking for it]), but also playing on Clinton's line about what is is. Later in stanza 1: "Mask-you-lines" (masculines), "ask-you-lines" (the lines, usually questions, used to start a seduction), "cloud feminine" contains "cloud nine".

Stanza 2 reeks puns, a few of which may be obscure: The parental sex description borrows from the old doo-wop love song lyrics (mentioned in a previous note) that include "Who put the bob in bob shebob shebob, who put the ram in ramalama dingdong". My being "Aries" is what suggests that "AirEEZE" would be a good brand name for a deordorant, and that leads to "How I do roll on" – that is, roll-on deordorant. AirEEZE (the idea that it's easy to breath fresh, fragrant air) leads to sucking air five times to be succinct (a word that suggests suck + the French word for 5, cinque. The ram/ewe/you/sheepish stuff should be obvious (and I hope you are ram/ewes'd by it).

In stanza three, the transition from rams and ewes to "randomly accessing" memories is the word "rampage", which suggests a computer's RAM page, where "RAM" means Random-Access Memory, and may be "paged" (something I used to know the meaning of...). A "dithyramb" is not a dizzy ram with a lisp, but a wildly emotional song or speech. And perhaps another word haunts it here: Ditheism (belief in two Gods), since while it is usual for poets to deify the poet, it is rarer that one of us deifies also the reader. (Do I?) One thing a dithyramb is not is a pithy ram.

(I see I should have brought Cupid and his bow into these poems, since I make plays on you, U and ewe. If Cupid's arrows are made of yew, I could extend the play in various directions. Some other lifetime.)

In stanza 5 the pun plot thickens (who'd of thunk it possible!), though maintaining throughout (I hope) two or three hard-to-dredge-up lines of linear logic. I claim to be ewe (that is, the recipient of my poetry, or a female) because I, too, am followed (in my assertions) by a but (butt), which suggests both the male aggression (butting) and the ewe's reception point (butt), and the "but" that precedes my qualifications is spelled "b-u-t", which, said quickly, is "beauty", which is a feminine qualification (using "qualification" in a different sense). (Something like that.) Then there are the two t's (or tutti's -- all's) of butt, which lead to a brief essay on double letters and doubled body parts and some that are quadruple (hind QUARTERS), the "druple" suggesting parts that droop. In the last line of this stanza, the approaching tits (for which one slang term is "tatas") are the assertion. The departing butt waggles "ta ta" or "so long" (and that does lengthen me so!); thus, the butt is the qualification following the assertion – in both senses of qualification. There's probably more to this stanza. I hope so, or why should you care? Further exegesis is left to, my Dear Reader, ewe.

In the last stanza, "Joycean Happy Funnies" refers to Joycean epiphanies. James Joyce labels the moments of realization towards which he tries to move his readers "epiphanies". Epiphany means a showing forth, an appearance or manifestation of God, etc. (It has a more specific meaning in Christianity.) I prefer revelations that are happy and funny. (I usually read the funnies before the headlines.) The next line is a slight extension of a line in the old song, "Tea for Two". We move from the multiplicity of beings contained in each of us (and in our surprisingly punful words) to the idea that there's no need to count sheep (rams and ewes) to put myself to sleep, since there are plenty of me's I can count, and if that fails, poems like mine will do the trick.

Though these poems keep ME up late. But they may work better for you. If my poetry can spare you the sleep nostrums of the pharmaceutical industry, I'll feel my job's well done. How can you get ‘em back on the Pharm, once they've seen "Blank Pages"?

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