Art by Paul Cezanne,
Self Portrait with Bowler Hat, 1885
“Wise Bloom eyed on the door a poster, a swaying mermaid smoking mid nice waves. Smoke mermaids, coolest whiff of all. Hair streaming: lovelorn. For some man. For Raoul.
He eyed and saw afar on Essex bridge a gay hat riding on a jaunting car. It is. Again. Third time. Coincidence.
Jingling on supple rubbers it jaunted from the bridge to Ormond quay. Follow. Risk it. Go quick. At four. Near now.
At four she…”
- Ulysses, James Joyce
Today’s Ezraku:
On a Wall of the Glyptotek
Cezanne’s incomplete hat and shoulder: hurried or snow-flurried?
Beneath Bloom’s bowler: a brain blurried and completely worried.
April is the Foolest Month
No, April’s not the cruelest month, T.S.
And creepy winter never kept us warm.
Your Bloomsbury band bred some real B.S.
But worse, the crone Woolf froze her own art form.
The Book of Bloom was born without a bang
Or whiff of gold or frankincense or myrrh.
The anti-magi snarled with flash of fang,
The gifts they bared: scold, skank pretense, and slur.
The newborn thing lay unmourned all winter,
Never whimpered, named as a pariah,
Damned to Hell’s pit, even by the printer.
Till Sylvia Beach midwifed this new messiah.
When you gaze on wonders, be kind, not cruel
Lest they be wunderkind, then you’ll look the fool.
Updated: Mar 18
“Why the Shakespearean Sonnet?” Asked the Open-Mic Host
Here’s how my sonnet psychosis was born:
‘Gainst Hemingway I did commit a crime.
His gem, “For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn,”
I stole it. Then I shined it up with rhyme.
And my next victim: crazy Ezra Pound,
I smashed and grabbed his spanking new haiku.
Don’t blame me, what goes around comes around,
He robbed the old and claimed to, “Make it New.”
Delighted by my derring-do crime spree,
I craved crown jewels, so I snatched Shakespeare’s purse!
A sudden switcheroo: Now I’m not free
Entrapped by Will’s penitentiary of verse.
Confession time: James Joyce first stole my mind,
And history rhymes, so I too, steal in kind.