What The Buck?
He’s Buck Mulligan, our book’s big bad guy,
A smiling backstabber who puns amuck.
His barbs mutilate with a sparkling eye.
Even his bunkmates are sure to be stuck.
His brand is mockery, his pricks various,
Sacred cows he butchers with naked glee.
Brash, malicious, and yet hilarious,
He bathes in the sea, and he lives rent-free.
Buck flays religion, faith he pillages,
Plucks sanctimony, shucks prissy sissies.
His laugh lays waste to noble villages.
What the… It sounds like Buck is Ulysses.
So Buck is not our book’s evil duckling.
Who else embodies Joyce’s swashbuckling?
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What Martha’s Letter Said
She will punish him for making me wait
Inside that cold post office pigeonhole.
And the only place he’ll communicate,
The shadows of bridges like an old troll.
He hides me in his pocket, where he’s free
To rip my white dress and then jerk me out
and finger my folds and deflower me.
Henry seems kind, but deep down he’s a lout.
When he’s done with me, he keeps me confined
In a dark drawer, locked away from his wife.
But, my words, in turn, have captured his mind.
And when he meets my maker, she’ll take his life.
Martha, she’s hot, and she knows better,
To fetter man’s heart, just write him a letter.
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The Book About Everything
How to read the book about everything.
You think you’re smart? Where do you start? Which part?
The plot, setting, or Bloom’s limp ding-a-ling?
Gulp it down whole or graze it a la carte?
Slip on your smarty pants, take the sly road,
Hone those three themes: Homer, Hamlet, and Home,
Or home in on isms’ desert abode,
And through infinite sand you’ll crawl and comb.
From rocky hard real- to surreal- shimmer
And every ism across the wasteland.
Or skim past those dunes; no need to simmer,
Just chill with line three, before it gets banned.
Try to pass the true intelligence test,
And laugh, laugh with the book of infinite jest.
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Same sit-back time, same chill-out channel.