THE VACUUM CLEANER QUARTET
from Chris Wayan's notebook, 1981
For three years I went to a psychodrama theater where I learned all I ever will about human nature. I gawked as caterpillars turned to butterflies. But when I drama'd myself, I stayed the same.
I got a discount for vacuuming the place afterward, at midnight, while the rest went off to a bar to celebrate their new wings... I was the natural choice. I was a vacuum cleaner: things went in, but not out.
So naturally, once the rug was clean, I wrote midnight poems fusing psychodrama and vacuum cleaners.
| The Vacuum Cleaner Quartet
|
1: Stopping outside Psychodrama on a Rainy Evening
Nothing - can be so Hungry!
And as this Engine - lures the Air to Claw -
At every cell of Lost - beneath its Maw -
So - my Heart-Vacuum gropes -
for Motes - to hide in my old - Red Sack -
Drumming in back - of my Innocent - Look -
I seal the Dark Theater - step into Rain -
and Wonder - when the Rug is Clean -
What breeds from those - spilled Secrets -
Pooled inside - my yellow-Eyed - Machine -
|
2: Resisterhood is Poetful
Fulfilled. Full. Filled.
Feel full filled, full filthed.
Feel foul. Bag. Filthy bag!
Vacuum. Clean! Er...
Full. Bag. Clog.
"Oh my dear, what a lovely rug!"
"Bag!
Bag!
Ugh!"
|
| 3: the vacuum conjugations
|
|---|
| present indicative | present accusative
| | singular | plural | singular | plural
| | 1st: vacuous | vacuum
| | 2nd: vacate | vacation | vac you | vacuole!
| | 3rd: vacant | vake up!
|
|
4. Ode to a Vacuum Cleaner
"Arise! You have Nothing, to lose!"
Want to be loved? Be a Vacuum.
Goddess knows, you know how to make Womb.
So men (under pressure) who Weather our World,
who seem to blow free as Adams of Air--
yet follow Prevailings, a Storm, a Cold Front,
come Blind to you, pressed by those Behind
and seeking an open Mind--like open Cunt!
Boast deeds, blurt needs, spurt seeds; Unloaded, go.
Slime pools inside. Your bag replaceable? Hope so!
Natures adore a Vacuum: "Here I COME!
Don't do a thing my dear, the Pressure's all Mine."
Play Dumb.
Or be the Frog in the throat of the Princess:
for endless In-Spiration cannot last.
And will the World or Lung or Love withstand
the Knuckles of that storm's karate Fist?
The croak, the Blast of larynx of this Beast
Exhaling, howling, Truth too long Comprest.
|
I suppose it's obvious that each poem echoes a different style:
Title: T.S. Eliot
1: Emily Dickinson with a tip o' the hat to Frost
2: Robin Morgan or any earnest 70s feminist
3: Kenneth Patchen, or e.e.cummings in that slightly elliptic fuck-you mood he gets. "Vac you all!"
4: Matthew Arnold, maybe? 19th Century, anyway. Uh oh. Maybe it's bad Milton.
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