My Own Public American Sonnet
I’ll give it a go, this American
Show and tell. Oh, my meter’s already blown.
Yeah, no, just own it: Yell instead of show.
I am jamming iambs up my pentameter, da-DUM, da-DUM…
I left motif in the dirt, dropped rhyme down the drain.
What a pain. Why’s this hurt? Why’m I not numb,
Or dumber? What if I like to paint by numbers?
Too many questions when you’re plumb full of freedom.
But Joyce is supposed to be my model,
My muse. He broke every lock of the book.
So why can’t I give it a try,
This entitled, unexceptional ruse?
There is a price for this American title:
Forget the past. Forgo the rules. Forfeit the vital.
Art by Vincent van Gogh
Tarascon Stagecoach, 1888
“Remember your epiphanies written on green oval leaves, deeply deep, copies to be sent if you died to all the great libraries of the world, including Alexandria?”
- Stephen Dedalus, June 16, 1904
Today's Ezraku:
The Ubiquity of Epiphany #1
Van Gogh’s green diligence of isolation:
Joyce’s sudden spiritual manifestation.
Updated: Jan 7
Art by Paul Cézanne
Still Life with Cherries and Peaches, 1885-1887
"—Well? Stephen said. The problem is to get money. From whom? From the milkwoman or from him. It’s a toss up, I think.
—I blow him out about you, Buck Mulligan said, and then you come along with your lousy leer and your gloomy jesuit jibes."
- Ulysses, James Joyce
Today's Ezraku:
On the Wall of a Museum #1
Cézanne’s canvas, impressions by daub and dab:
Joyce’s pages, expressions by jibe and jab.