“Am I a bad man? Am I a good man?”
A little of both, he decides, with the help of his blackface buddy, who’s shaking
his head and talking in dialect like always. But I don’t think these questions
are meant as seriously as the ones yesterday from DS 238.
Another woman left him and headed
for Ecuador, without a word. Is this better than tears, some choice insults (calling
him a coward for sure, that's always a
good one), and with a good glass-shattering door slam she’s gone? Probably not. Oh,
man. Oh, well. Been here before. “She brought me Sanka and violent drugs / which
were yet wholly inadequate.” Then the doctor doubles them. “or may a niche be
found / in nothingness for completely exhausted Henry?” Who knows? The ringing
of her absence, which triggered these deep questions, also doesn’t allow for
the questions to be answered. The guy’s beat up, though. There’s that.
I forget his black humor
sometimes in all my tedious earnest seriousness. I don’t want to offend
anybody. (Like he ever worried about
that…) But I’m tired today, so heck with it. This whole poem reminds me for
some trivial reason of Burt Reynolds’s buddy in Smoky and the Bandit, that libertarian ‘70s celebration of fast
cars, law breakin’, sex, beer, and shit-kickin’ Deep South rednecks. He starts
a fight in some country honkytonk bar and gets his ass kicked for it. He talks
to Smoky on the CB, laid out on the gravel next to his car, explains he got in a fight. “How’d it go?” “’Bout normal.” So
yeah, sleep with 65 women or whatever number you brag about, even if it’s half
of that, you get used, probably, to slamming doors, or worse, her disappearing
in disgust without another word. Split lip, black eye, bloody nose? No real
harm done. Might as well laugh about it. You even learn to like it after
awhile.
"My doctor doubles them daily." Sheesh.
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