Today’s Hemingway Half-Dozen Prose Poem:
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Darkest sky,
Deepest sigh,
Gloomsday’s Nigh.
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(Art from Dave Gibbons’ & Alan Moore’s Watchmen)
This is Ithaca #1
Why does he read Ulysses by James Joyce?
It is the only novel worth his heed.
What cause or defect led to this odd choice?
He never chose, he chased the longest lead.
Was his pursuit begun without deep thought?
Thought may be too high a speed for this fool.
Are racing words all this guy’s got to trot?
With metaphors, he’s not the sharpest tool.
Are there more defects than too slow, too dull?
Too many to count (he’s bad at math too).
What other skills and strengths are void and null?
Far more than two, he scores low through and through.
Why with his folly this much insistence?
The fool’s one wisdom is his persistence.
I Want To Write About My Old Dad, Bo
But I just can’t. I’m stuck with old James Joyce.
Dad had plus ninety years. They were brisk ones.
He heard midnight’s chimes, felt cold morning suns.
As these thoughts thrive, they wilt my weak, weak voice.
We read together: Mick’s main man, Jackson Lamb,
We loved The Good Lord Bird by James McBride,
And cried with laughs at Beatty’s greatest jam
The Sellout. Then there’s Flashman, what a ride.
Go look at the film based on Joyce’s book,
See Bo and Milo share the same browed eyes,
Which might make you think that each was a schnook.
But no, to life’s joke, both rascals were wise.
So, yeah, I see Bo in Leopold Bloom.
And in my mirror? His old son, I presume.