Issa's Untidy Hut: Michael McNeilley

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

George Carlin in Twain and Swift Territory

Dali/Quixote Napkin by Tom Kane (w/tea stain)

The following is a small excerpt from the 2007 George Carlin special "It's Bad For Ya." In some ways it is a humorous take on similar territory explored in the recent Robinson Jeffers post. Once again, Twain and Vonnegut and Swift come to mind, the great satirists who cared enough to rip their beloved fellow travelers a new one for the sake of redemption. The pitch Carlin builds here nearly takes him out of comedy all together; though he might have lost a step or two physically in his later years, he was never more scintillating, acerbic, and spot-on as in this portrait of the human condition. (It's hard to imagine that a language disclaimer is necessary at a small press poetry blog but here you go: George uses many of those famous seven words and more, so you've been warned).

As I mentioned in last Thursday's weekly post, due to schedule changes at my paying job, the archival posts will now be on Tuesday and this is the first. This week it's issue #57 of Lilliput Review, from June 1994. Hope you enjoy the selections, including a poem by the late Michael McNeilley, author of the Lilliput broadside 15 sexual haiku/senryu, a visual art/poem, and one for Kurt Cobain. Has it really been 14 years?

down they came

down they came and I wiped
them out ----the bastards
-------they'll be back I know
-------sit over there ---so don't then
they'll be back I tell you
you'd better listen ---we'd better
-------hurry we've just got time
-------to get one in
we'll be ready for them next time
won't we but we'd better hurry
-------shit here they come ----here
-------take this no wait

Michael McNeilley

The Light Above It Is Burned Out

The stepladder's closed,
leaning against the stacks.

If it were in Humanities,
symbolism would shine all over.

In Government Documents, it waits
for the maintenance man to get off break.
H. Edgar Hix