Joy Olivia Yourcenar

Fall Daoshi

In my garden, pumpkins ripen green to gold;
acorn squash hide among the withered leaves.
Riddled with creeper, the lone pine strangles;
the last tomatoes hang half-ripened on the vine.
A vacant September sky stretches over me;
I stoop and pick the last ripe strawberry.

 

Rapunzel
or The Rape of Poetry

As if some Ivy League Rapunzel
waits to let down her metaphoric hair,
the university press editor
pontificates on "academic poetry"
and other intellectual fairy tales
that keep the heroine safely ensconced
in her ivory tower.
I've come to warn you.
Escape before the Academics
finish walling you into
their uptight epistemologies
and concrete definition;
Beware the princes of Academia, Rapunzel.
Given the choice between you or tenure,
they'll publish you until you perish
gasping for a breath of original thought,
Legitimizing their blindness,
they hoard knowledge
as if their alphabetic pedigrees
give them the right to control you
and save your beauty
for their sightless eyes alone.
Jump Rapunzel!
Climb down.
Walk among the people
who sweat, bleed
and make love,
crying out
in weary frustration
at the ugliness and monotony
of their seamless lives;
Without your lyric beauty
they may miss
the transcendent moments.
Sing Rapunzel,
Sing for the dreaming girl
who colors snow blue,
who will grow to
bleed and scar,
value questioned
and questioning
Her translucent soul
offers scant protection
for her earthbound body;
you are her mother
and she will need
to join your song.
Sing Rapunzel,
Sing for the agricultural worker,
family farm swallowed whole
by ravenous Agricorps.
He needs your song
so that when he closes his eyes
he can still reclaim
golden treasure of his own wheatfield
and the filigree of a spider's web
spun in the corner of his own barn door.
Sing Rapunzel,
Sing for the homeless man
in a coonskin cap and dreds
panhandling at the bus station;
he hears your songs
in his head,
even when you are silent.
He has no voice
but yours to tell his story.
Rap with the inner city kid, Rapunzel.
Go into the 'hood to find
the disenfranchised urban bards.
Their bastard cadences and righteous rhymes
seethe with a virile artistry
that frightens the university eunuchs.
Angry sons of Beat fathers,
they know how to howl
and their audible power
could bring the tower down.
Sing for them, Rapunzel.
Sing for them all.
Sing to save yourself.

In Praise of LSD (Laidback Sexy Dudes)

Coming up fast on forty,
I'm grateful for old hippies,
their bushy manes
flowing down their backs
in greying ponytails.
They are a national treasure
in their homemade tie-dyed t-shirts,
the original sandaled boys of summer,
back when a Birkenstock
stood for something
besides Yuppy pseudofashion sense...
They've answered the Big Question
with a hearty
"Hell, Yes"
and they are sexy
in their 100% natural cotton self-acceptance.
American originals,
They wouldn't even hang themselves
with a Rush red tie.
On the Road with life
true sons of Dharma bums,
karmically darling,
cosmically cool...
they've known Joni,
MaryJane, and Peggy Sue
in the Garden
and wandered serenely
in the purple haze
with Dylan and Jerry...
No tricky dicks,
they know what groovy means.
Tuned in and turned on,
They are comfortable to be around,
fit like your favorite pair of worn blue jeans,
Accept your body the same way.
and somehow you can't feel old around them.

Goddess bless old hippies,
send them peace and a piece
homebrew and a pipe too.
I forget...does LSD
stand for Laidback Sexy Dude, or what?
I get kind of psychedelic
rapping poetry with
my buddies, Terry and Mad Alex,
those spaced Margin men,
aliens invading conventionality,
they'd rather make the scene
than be taken to your leader
though, hey, if he wants to drop by
and jam...bring a drum
and sit in..they're cool with that.
These are kind of mellow, kind of wild,
open minded universal beatbabes,
playing hopscotch with their inner child.
Happy to read hiphop jazzed poetry to you
by candlelight,
willing to drink wine out of the jug
when you forget the cups.
Standup bass heartpluckers,
those crazy dumbsaints down on the Margin
rock me like a mill train
rocketing through,
making the tracks bounce,
blowing the whistle
as loud and long and deep
as they want to blow..

Keep your repressed mildclass boys
in monogrammed navy sweaters.
My Deadhead lover's a trip...
magical mystery tourguide,
knows that free love is an imperative,
a call to action, the true flower power;
lay him down and let him do his stuff
and oh my my
the spice, the love season
a little salt and pepper
down there provides;
old hippies sure can cook,
boil you down like a rich stock.
They are a grace
and, serendipity, they smell like men,
not warring perfume ads in GQ.
Openly randy, unabashedly virile,
they understand why
you need to brush and braid
and let you play with their hair
in rampant, unrepentent sensuality.
Mom's tightass Puri-titanic culture
warned me a life ago about
going out with a boy
whose hair is longer than mine...

No problem,
Old hippies are marinara men,
saucy and bold,
we're staying in
and I am growing my hair out.

May 8, 1997

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