Mean Drunk Poem

Backward & down into inbetween as Vicki says. Or as Robin teaches

the gap, from which all things emerge. A left

handed compliment. Bats, houses of parliament, giants, stones.

What woman, witness to such Thought, does not feel

so described & so impotent

 

she thinks

she must speak. ‘I will take your linguistic prick & you

will take my linguistic prick & together we will gap

this imagined earth together.’ She has the feeling,

all her life, that she never makes sense. There is something

else, big & dark, at the edge of what she knows, she cannot

say. She always has the feeling she is translating into

Broken english. Language all her life is a second language,

the first is mute & exists. I get drunk

 

to lubricate my brain & all that comes out

of my Gap

is more bloody writing. No wonder we cook dinner. Have another

kid. Write poetry about the Beloved & kiss ass.

Who cares, as Eleanor says,

who beats whose door down yelling Truth.

 

The door is only &

always an entrance.

 

Sing Om as you take the sausage rolls out of the oven.

The Gap is real & there is no such thing as

female intelligence. We’re dumber than hell.

Bibliographical info

Sharon Thesen, “Mean Drunk Poem” from Artemis Hates Romance, Coach House Press. Copyright © 1980 Sharon Thesen. Printed by permission of the author.

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