Tag Archives: Lust

The Poetaster

Why does Homer’s Muse disdain me?
Why won’t nymphs touch my flute?
When heroes sail the wine-dark sea
why do I stay home and salute?
When will I know love from lust?
Why do both turn my brain to peat?
Why are lies the only words I trust?
Why is mud the only pie I eat?
My muse is a mouse in a cage
who refuses to obey my command
and when I touch the cold, chaste page
it slaps the dry pen from my hand.
Wicked muse, eat your stale cheese
but breath your stench on another fake,
allow my feeble tongue to unfreeze
for I’ve forms to fill and calls to make
and I’m near the end of my coffee break.

Luvgood Carp, Editor-in-Chief

The Epic of Dogtown

Don Winslow’s City on Fire has quotes from The Aeneid and The Iliad throughout. Those epics are about the siege of Troy, the original city on fire, so the quotes are apt. Winslow’s story is an epic as well, but his Troy is Providence, Rhode Island, the land of “I know a guy.” That’s an unexpected setting for an epic, but it works. Just substitute the ancient Greeks and Trojans for Italian and Irish mobsters in the 1980s. The Irish control the docks. The Italians control the trucks and almost everything else. The merchandise that falls off the boats and trucks supports both gangs and their respective rust belt neighborhoods. Each respects the other’s territory, meaning the Italians rarely venture into Dogtown, the name of the Irish section where slaughterhouses once attracted feral dogs.

A beautiful woman emerges from the sea on a hot summer day. Here’s our Helen, except her name is Pam, because it’s Providence. Danny Ryan knows immediately that she’s going to be trouble. “Women that beautiful usually are.” Just ask the Greeks and Trojans. Danny is in his late 20s, and his father-in-law runs the Irish gang. Danny is “faithful like a dog,” so he isn’t going to be the Paris in this story. That role is reserved for his brother-in-law, who steals Pam away from a high-ranking Italian mobster. Jokes are made at this mobster’s expense, and when “people start to disrespect you in one area of your life, it leaks into others.” The initial weapons are bats, but soon bullets fly and bodies fall. Danny moves up the chain of command. He’s never been tested like this before, and it’s going to take everything he has to get himself and his family out alive.

Mob stories make for great epics. They have all the requisites built in: violence, greed, lust, family, and loyalty. There’s just one problem. Our popular culture is rife with these stories, so it takes a talented writer to craft a captivating one that’s fresh. Fortunately, Winslow is such a writer.

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor.

The Poet Taster

Why does Homer's Muse disdain me?
Why won't nymphs touch my flute?
When heroes sail the wine-dark sea
why do I stay home and salute?

When will I know love from lust?
Why do both turn my brain to peat?
Why are lies the only words I trust?
Why is mud the only pie I eat?

My miserable muse is a mouse in a cage
who refuses to obey my command
and when I touch the cold, chaste page
it slaps the dry pen out of my hand.

Wicked muse, eat your stale cheese
but blow your foul breath on another fake,
allow my feeble tongue to unfreeze
for I've forms to fill and calls to make
and I'm nearing the end of my coffee break.

Luvgood Cap, Editor-in-Chief

The Poet Taster

Why does Homer's Muse disdain me?
Why won't nymphs touch my flute?
When heroes sail the wine-dark sea
why stay at my desk and salute?

When will I know love from lust?
Why is it both cause a stomachache?
Why are lies all that I trust?
Why is drool all that I make?

My muse is a mouse in a cage
who refuses to obey my command,
and when I touch the cold chaste page
it slaps the dry pen from my hand.

Wicked muse, eat your stale cheese,
blow your foul breath on another fake -
allow my feeble tongue to unfreeze
because I've forms to fill, calls to make,
and I'm near the end of my coffee break.

Luvgood Carp, Editor-in-Chief

Twins

   Unlike some gentlemen,
   I was never tempted by twins.
   They never captivated me -
   until that pink-driven spring
   when I encountered your proud peaks
   in a downy form-fitting sweater.
   Then I couldn't get twins off my mind.

   I will also confess surprise
   that you pounced upon my timid feeler.
   I expected you three to ignore me.
 
   Even more - 
   I expected you to run
   after that first fumbling night
   of errant probes and prods,
   but you stayed.

   Eventually, winter came,
   but you did not come with it.
   That left me cold and relieved.

   There was a time
   during that fevered summer 
   when I was concerned 
   I should love you less.
   But that would have been impossible.

   Luvgood Carp, Editor-in-Chief