Besides, what else could it be, this
toothpick with this exceptionally long eyelash attached to it
with a spot of glue? And oh, here come the fervent horsemen
now, clutching their horses' bridles, waving their implements
overhead in the air, and galloping down from the shoulders in
order to lift up the T-shirt or brassiere. Devils, torturers,
these fiends know all too well that too much talk about the
nipplewhip, could some day cost the poet a fellowship! Disgruntled,
the lovers part. Together, the poet and his love poems sink
together into a gloom of handkissing. The little horsemen fall
to the floor, and later on someone wearing a pair of carpet-slippers
shuffles sleepily and disconsolately over to them and sweeps
them all up. Meanwhile, at this very moment, all over that part
of town with no pretensions towards taste or art, laughing,
impetuous people are flinging themselves directly into the path
of the nipplewhip
Earlier versions of these
poems originally appeared in Night Cries (Wesleyan UniversityPress,
l976), copyright Michael Benedikt l976. Benedikt, whose work
is widely represented on the web, and who's cited by About.com
as "Poet Laureate of The Net," is the author of 5
books of poetry: The Body, Sky, Mole Notes, Night Cries and
most recently, The Badminton At Great Barrington. He's also
the editor of several landmark anthologies of poetry and plays
including The Poetry of Surrealism and The Prose Poem: An International
Anthology. URL: http://members. aol.com/benedit1/miniweb.html
Guide to Michael Benedikt Mini-Web
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