There are caps and there are
gowns
wrapped around
an application
for a Visa card
It's everywhere I want to be
!!Do Not Delay!!
I am warned--luckily
I took care of all this weeks ago
I haven't opened my urban
studies INTRAMURAL
stamped packet reminds me of
afterschool suburban sports
flag football, basketball, volleyball everything in
its proper league
To life, I dig through the layers--
My parents want me to have a happy
passover with "matzah love"
I had a happy passover with my family
years ago
Two empty envelopes--one from
Student Financial
Services and one from the passover
wishes
They both finance my education
Then there is an announcement for
a job fair. I know what it is before
I open it. I open it.
Two waiters serving up jobs
College graduates do not become waiters
These firms have actual job
openings available immediately
I COULD WAIT TABLES.
I COULD WAIT TABLES.
I COULD WAIT TABLES.
I'm invited to the party,
but am I on the list
of the 33 promoters
for reduced admission?
It happened last week --
Morty, James, J.P., Sophie, Fernando, Logan, Naph, Marti, Anthony,
Rofique, Wally, Tino, Nisaba, Ryan, Ali, Zayd, Cara, Jimmy, Dina,
Alejandro, Cristiana, J.C., Jimmy, Ali, Eric, Alyse, Ali, Ben, Mahan,
Ryan, Ramon, Evan, Matt
you're all on my list now
thanks to the invitation -- you've been
granted reduced admission
Two CDs--country and western--
and I'm driving
through Georgia in the back seat
there is dope being passed around
and I'm goin' country. Look
at my boots. Time marches on.
Country singers wear big hats to cover
their big hair. Hair is power
I shaved yesterday.
Gotta have a CD player if I wanna
hear this music
More from Richard Beeman. I'm on
his list of prospective college graduates
and I need some "helpful information"
to get me
in my cap and gown
to the complementary graduation ceremony.
Then I must return my cap and gown.
I've noted well that I must
congregate at 6:00 pm
MILK--Where's your mustache?
It's on the five Elvises,
one of them is very young.
None of them is very old.
Elvis was Elvis when Elvis
was young
Elvis was never very old
I've got a postcard of Argentina.
The mail service
slapped a white sticker across the bottom of it
The flourescent marks on the sticker and the sticker
obscure the edges of the town
Correo Argentina
On its back is a PRIVATE BEACH
which is the name of a hotel
The state of it = Catholicism,
or so the postcard says.
Art Spiegelman, creator of Maus
and 1992 Pulitzer Prize winner
appeared on the same day as the party
promoted by the 33 promoters
on my list.
I attended the lecture briefly,
but the room was crowded
and I couldn't hear.
Both events have been remembered.
From: Lukasz Szyrmer
Dave,
There's a lot you've done in this poem, raising numerous issues, many of
which are particularly pertinent to the lives of the graduating members of
hubverse. For some reason your poem got me thinking about bureaucratic
poets, or alternately, the role of the poet in bureaucracy. You preserve
institutional memory, particularly of functions. There seems to be a
certain amount of chronicleing in this poem, viewed through the prism of
your distinctively quirky and aesthetically challenging style.
I lose the significance of the 'cap and gown information' by the end of
the poem. You bring in religious allusions and descriptions of events into
your postmodern critique, and I can't really make sense of the
significance of the cap and the gown. They seem symbolic, but I can't
quite get at the 'signified'. Either I'm missing something, which is
quite possible, or you're missing something, and it'd be a good idea to
add
that something.
"Boo" reduces to pushing boundaries, nothing more.
Luke