#groucho - Hello Poetry

“I've realized,” I write, “the Groucho Marx of the mind is chaos personified. The Groucho Marx of *my mind *was chaos, I revise and already think I should revise again – “you never know where you'll end up,” I think, of me and of Groucho. Either way, Groucho Marx came to me in a thought when I was thinking about a poem I will not finish, that would have been about him. “We were just four jews looking for a laugh,” Groucho says at least twice – once when he was alive and once now as I invoke him – the heavy glasses, the synonymous greasepaint lip, the cigar – lit, with smoke that surrounds and engulfs me, threads tangibly through the air, through my eyes, and through the insides of my sinus densely, like mossy Eldritch Horrors and old movies somehow without stopping my vision. He has a mouth but it doesn't move, he is not alive – instead he is a ghost, instead he is dead but standing there, with me, in space lighted from within – space that's white like the smoke – thickly. Among all this, a ghost in a black suit. At least, I think the suit is black, or bluing black. It is tinged with 50 years of rotting celluloid, and paired with a white button up underneath – no tie. Growing up all five of them were poor, very poor – so poor they were Jewish-in-New-York-in-the-early-1900s poor. Forced outside of the world, into their world from birth, while their mother, Big Duck, put them up to instruments and got them begging early – vaudeville was their daddy after all (“after all” being a refrain in the poem I'll never finish, repeated like a mantra – after all! after all! after all! after all!– in that text, and used like a drug – afterall – and always driving deathward to an end that never came and can't, after all is written down) – with the jokes they told and sang and played, on their piano, harp, and banjo, all the time – and here is how she learnt how well Chico could play the piano, and how well Harpo could play the harp. And how poorly little Groucho played the banjo. The shame she felt, the shame she must have felt – but here my poem consumes them, because I am already sure that childhood is wrought with fear of birth order, sure as I am that middle children lack something, and maybe have something for that lack, but It's me, not Groucho, that takes over, saying Groucho was the obvious middle child, and of course lacked Big Duck's approval – Big Duck hated the banjo strumming and myriad puns he threw, I say – puns being a part of the poem, the poem which would have (but never) ended on Groucho ducking soup. I wanted it all as a joke and still do, but who will disappoint? Who could? There are options – Groucho, myself, the poem, etc. all working poorly. It is hard to imagine the lack that would culminate in a poet – maybe this gap is wider than a middle child – writing three brothers into a brawl, cartoonish in the streets. May be even harder to imagine the discontent and fear at work inside a child of five – birthing chaos. Maybe I misspoke – I can't know, I'm not a child of five. Groucho is dead, is still standing in front of me expectantly, not moving. Right in front of me when again I hear his voice – reanimate and filtered through a phonograph – weakly rising above it's own eroded texture – “I was misquoted, I was misquoted... Quote me as saying, 'I was misquoted.'” I wanted his life entropically spinning this place, spinning throughout this place, a ghost – to live forever is to die forever in every gaunt lie, misquote after misquote re-shaping our dead selves until grotesqueries we never intended are held comfortably under our name. Groucho, aimless, escapes because he pre-empts – he uses his whole self to decimate his cultural body, to save the self he's sacrificed. Groucho means to become a void, or Groucho becomes a void more correctly – Groucho means nothing, can only mean nothing, because he's focused his words – his self – around his lack – the words' lack. Because the words always lack, and Groucho is all words. I see him take out the greasepaint container, which is in a shoe-polish-looking canister, and then I lose Groucho again to facts – he was the outsider using words to one up them. I see his wit like a weapon. His being in Hollywood was a stress on Hollywood's peace of mind. I see him tearing balsa wood from up under the street and chucking it into styrofoam towers, which crumble. I see the SUVs that swerved to pass him run into walls, deflating the cars and the walls while the drivers run screaming with ketchup pulsing from the real wounds in their necks. This is where my poem was – more or less. My poem had Groucho gleeful – “Groucho skips, Groucho skips, Groucho skips,” it said, “down the streets throwing rocks at cars...” – the melodies of my naive poem's schoolboy nihilisms never broke enough – “In Groucho's perfect world every day would be spent disrupting traffic, smashing bugs and ******* everywhere,” it said because it was too young to understand, because it had no void, and could offer no revolt from meaning – revolution being radical agency expressed through violence against every order, hatred for every structure including itself – in Groucho's perfect world really there is no language and no one knows what happens after all. Lingering is the thought that Groucho means something – lingering is the vaguest, most insistent and warlike imprint of a metaphor on Groucho's face, ineffably moving me to continue but Groucho is no friend, and Groucho is not with me, because the Groucho of the mind is not Groucho, Groucho hates the mind, and Groucho negates all possible Groucho's so the imprint is not Groucho's. The ghost is a misquote, the poem is a misquote, the letters are a misquote, I am a misquote – and this is a misquote too. His cigar (growing bigger) is puffing out that white cloud smoke but still I can see him – the smoke just goes into the space around us, the space that redacts and recreates itself every time I consider it – a copy of an 18th copy, with only Groucho remaining in all iterations, like the borders of a decomposed jpeg quietly losing logic. Groucho the lie, Groucho the memory – a man shaped around the falsity of metaphor and language – floats, as subject, through my memory – punctum with no point, void. Here he is – naked, a stark black silhouette I'd never claim. He's staring, but he's not staring at me because I'm not there. What's left is overstated nothing – the ghost of a man who negated logic, left in the mind of a poet who has long since given up on the man, and soon will give up on the poem.” There is nothing left here. I am alone, I am dizzy – overcome with boredom. I want to say, “Groucho is not here, was not, cannot be here” – I know instead I need to end on a mute point.

0

Mar 6, 2015

Mar 6, 2015 at 3:11 PM UTC

jesi-gaston

MY POEM ABOUT GROUCHO MARX

“I've realized,” I write, “the Groucho Marx of the mind is chaos personified. The Groucho Marx of *my mind *was chaos, I revise and already think I should revise again – “you never know where you'll end up,” I think, of me and of Groucho. Either way, Groucho Marx came to me in a thought when I was thinking about a poem I will not finish, that would have been about him. “We were just four jews looking for a laugh,” Groucho says at least twice – once when he was alive and once now as I invoke him – the heavy glasses, the synonymous greasepaint lip, the cigar – lit, with smoke that surrounds and engulfs me, threads tangibly through the air, through my eyes, and through the insides of my sinus densely, like mossy Eldritch Horrors and old movies somehow without stopping my vision. He has a mouth but it doesn't move, he is not alive – instead he is a ghost, instead he is dead but standing there, with me, in space lighted from within – space that's white like the smoke – thickly. Among all this, a ghost in a black suit. At least, I think the suit is black, or bluing black. It is tinged with 50 years of rotting celluloid, and paired with a white button up underneath – no tie. Growing up all five of them were poor, very poor – so poor they were Jewish-in-New-York-in-the-early-1900s poor. Forced outside of the world, into their world from birth, while their mother, Big Duck, put them up to instruments and got them begging early – vaudeville was their daddy after all (“after all” being a refrain in the poem I'll never finish, repeated like a mantra – after all! after all! after all! after all!– in that text, and used like a drug – afterall – and always driving deathward to an end that never came and can't, after all is written down) – with the jokes they told and sang and played, on their piano, harp, and banjo, all the time – and here is how she learnt how well Chico could play the piano, and how well Harpo could play the harp. And how poorly little Groucho played the banjo. The shame she felt, the shame she must have felt – but here my poem consumes them, because I am already sure that childhood is wrought with fear of birth order, sure as I am that middle children lack something, and maybe have something for that lack, but It's me, not Groucho, that takes over, saying Groucho was the obvious middle child, and of course lacked Big Duck's approval – Big Duck hated the banjo strumming and myriad puns he threw, I say – puns being a part of the poem, the poem which would have (but never) ended on Groucho ducking soup. I wanted it all as a joke and still do, but who will disappoint? Who could? There are options – Groucho, myself, the poem, etc. all working poorly. It is hard to imagine the lack that would culminate in a poet – maybe this gap is wider than a middle child – writing three brothers into a brawl, cartoonish in the streets. May be even harder to imagine the discontent and fear at work inside a child of five – birthing chaos. Maybe I misspoke – I can't know, I'm not a child of five. Groucho is dead, is still standing in front of me expectantly, not moving. Right in front of me when again I hear his voice – reanimate and filtered through a phonograph – weakly rising above it's own eroded texture – “I was misquoted, I was misquoted... Quote me as saying, 'I was misquoted.'” I wanted his life entropically spinning this place, spinning throughout this place, a ghost – to live forever is to die forever in every gaunt lie, misquote after misquote re-shaping our dead selves until grotesqueries we never intended are held comfortably under our name. Groucho, aimless, escapes because he pre-empts – he uses his whole self to decimate his cultural body, to save the self he's sacrificed. Groucho means to become a void, or Groucho becomes a void more correctly – Groucho means nothing, can only mean nothing, because he's focused his words – his self – around his lack – the words' lack. Because the words always lack, and Groucho is all words. I see him take out the greasepaint container, which is in a shoe-polish-looking canister, and then I lose Groucho again to facts – he was the outsider using words to one up them. I see his wit like a weapon. His being in Hollywood was a stress on Hollywood's peace of mind. I see him tearing balsa wood from up under the street and chucking it into styrofoam towers, which crumble. I see the SUVs that swerved to pass him run into walls, deflating the cars and the walls while the drivers run screaming with ketchup pulsing from the real wounds in their necks. This is where my poem was – more or less. My poem had Groucho gleeful – “Groucho skips, Groucho skips, Groucho skips,” it said, “down the streets throwing rocks at cars...” – the melodies of my naive poem's schoolboy nihilisms never broke enough – “In Groucho's perfect world every day would be spent disrupting traffic, smashing bugs and ******* everywhere,” it said because it was too young to understand, because it had no void, and could offer no revolt from meaning – revolution being radical agency expressed through violence against every order, hatred for every structure including itself – in Groucho's perfect world really there is no language and no one knows what happens after all. Lingering is the thought that Groucho means something – lingering is the vaguest, most insistent and warlike imprint of a metaphor on Groucho's face, ineffably moving me to continue but Groucho is no friend, and Groucho is not with me, because the Groucho of the mind is not Groucho, Groucho hates the mind, and Groucho negates all possible Groucho's so the imprint is not Groucho's. The ghost is a misquote, the poem is a misquote, the letters are a misquote, I am a misquote – and this is a misquote too. His cigar (growing bigger) is puffing out that white cloud smoke but still I can see him – the smoke just goes into the space around us, the space that redacts and recreates itself every time I consider it – a copy of an 18th copy, with only Groucho remaining in all iterations, like the borders of a decomposed jpeg quietly losing logic. Groucho the lie, Groucho the memory – a man shaped around the falsity of metaphor and language – floats, as subject, through my memory – punctum with no point, void. Here he is – naked, a stark black silhouette I'd never claim. He's staring, but he's not staring at me because I'm not there. What's left is overstated nothing – the ghost of a man who negated logic, left in the mind of a poet who has long since given up on the man, and soon will give up on the poem.” There is nothing left here. I am alone, I am dizzy – overcome with boredom. I want to say, “Groucho is not here, was not, cannot be here” – I know instead I need to end on a mute point.

5

Keep your stamps and letters Don't invite me to a meeting If you keep them coming I'll treat you to a beating Groups all seem to want me But the feeling's not the same Go and find your mailing list And please remove my name oh.... I won't join any club that would have me as a member I've a memory like an elephant so, don't send me application forms Because you know I will remember Oh, It must be freezing down in hell In fact it must be snowing I came today, just to say Hello, I must be going Don't ask me to sign up again Please don't be deluded Check your list and you'll find me In the column marked excluded Oh I won't join any club that would have me as a member I've a memory like an elephant so, don't send me application forms Because you know I will remember Oh, It must be freezing down in hell In fact it must be snowing I came today, just to say Hello, I must be going Save your money, save your stamps You know just what to do Stop calling, stop the letters Please, I'm asking you The only group with membership Costs me more, due to my brothers Is family, and even then I think we had different mothers oh,I won't join any club that would have me as a member I've a memory like an elephant so, don't send me application forms Because you know I will remember Oh, It must be freezing down in hell In fact it must be snowing I came today, just to say Hello, I must be going I will not join any club that would have me as a member I'll tell you now, and then again, I'll tell you in September The world is a much better place, if on your list my name's not showing So here I am, with you to say...Hello, I must be going

0

Nov 30, 2016

Nov 30, 2016 at 12:27 AM UTC

roger-turner

I won't join any club that would have me as a member

Keep your stamps and letters Don't invite me to a meeting If you keep them coming I'll treat you to a beating Groups all seem to want me But the feeling's not the same Go and find your mailing list And please remove my name oh.... I won't join any club that would have me as a member I've a memory like an elephant so, don't send me application forms Because you know I will remember Oh, It must be freezing down in hell In fact it must be snowing I came today, just to say Hello, I must be going Don't ask me to sign up again Please don't be deluded Check your list and you'll find me In the column marked excluded Oh I won't join any club that would have me as a member I've a memory like an elephant so, don't send me application forms Because you know I will remember Oh, It must be freezing down in hell In fact it must be snowing I came today, just to say Hello, I must be going Save your money, save your stamps You know just what to do Stop calling, stop the letters Please, I'm asking you The only group with membership Costs me more, due to my brothers Is family, and even then I think we had different mothers oh,I won't join any club that would have me as a member I've a memory like an elephant so, don't send me application forms Because you know I will remember Oh, It must be freezing down in hell In fact it must be snowing I came today, just to say Hello, I must be going I will not join any club that would have me as a member I'll tell you now, and then again, I'll tell you in September The world is a much better place, if on your list my name's not showing So here I am, with you to say...Hello, I must be going

50

Virus Covidius, it is quite insidius Much worse than Ty-phoid Mary They say it arrived from China But, I'm thinking North Regina Virus Covidius, it's gonna get rid of us It's so contagious they cancelled baseball It's affecting the world from Brazil to Nepal You can't go to church, but, your'e safe at the mall This virus called covidius da da da, da da da, da da da, da da da, You can go buy, at the shops, if you try If you're ready to get in line Toilet paper is out, there is none about But, you can still get wine Oh virus covidius If you shop for toilet tissue You'll find none, and that's an issue Oh virus covidius, it's quite insidius It's much worse than the Spanish Flu They say isolation, stay home alone Watch your tv, play games on the phone Just rearranging the things that you own You can thank the **** covidius Da Da Da, Da Da, Da,Da, Da Da, Da, Da Da Always wear a mask and please keep your distance Simple, but met with resistance They are all saying don't touch your face Stay six feet apart and give me my space Da da da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da If a second wave comes and hits us much harder I'll have lots of food stored here in my larder But then there is still the issue Of Where do I find toilet tissue? Da da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da Oh virus covidius, it is quite insidius It's changed the way that we live They've cancelled all of the games that we play From down in Montana, to old Mandalay With out a vaccine, we just live for today You can blame covidius da da da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da I said covidius, yes covidius I said covidius yes covidius Da da.

0

Jun 21, 2020

Jun 21, 2020 at 3:04 PM UTC

roger-turner

virus covidius

Virus Covidius, it is quite insidius Much worse than Ty-phoid Mary They say it arrived from China But, I'm thinking North Regina Virus Covidius, it's gonna get rid of us It's so contagious they cancelled baseball It's affecting the world from Brazil to Nepal You can't go to church, but, your'e safe at the mall This virus called covidius da da da, da da da, da da da, da da da, You can go buy, at the shops, if you try If you're ready to get in line Toilet paper is out, there is none about But, you can still get wine Oh virus covidius If you shop for toilet tissue You'll find none, and that's an issue Oh virus covidius, it's quite insidius It's much worse than the Spanish Flu They say isolation, stay home alone Watch your tv, play games on the phone Just rearranging the things that you own You can thank the **** covidius Da Da Da, Da Da, Da,Da, Da Da, Da, Da Da Always wear a mask and please keep your distance Simple, but met with resistance They are all saying don't touch your face Stay six feet apart and give me my space Da da da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da If a second wave comes and hits us much harder I'll have lots of food stored here in my larder But then there is still the issue Of Where do I find toilet tissue? Da da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da Oh virus covidius, it is quite insidius It's changed the way that we live They've cancelled all of the games that we play From down in Montana, to old Mandalay With out a vaccine, we just live for today You can blame covidius da da da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da I said covidius, yes covidius I said covidius yes covidius Da da.

44

Time moves on as I do too I felt I had to come to you I only came to bid adieu Hello, I must be going I came here once so I could say I am here but can not stay I said goodbye, in my own way Hello, I must be going I am here as you can see I have to say, it can not be I have to leave, it's time to flee Hello, I must be going I'd love to stay and join the fun Stay here all night, at least till one But I'm here to say, I have to run Hello, I must be going There's nothing you can do or say Not one thing will make me stay I'm telling you, I'm on my way Hello, I must be going Now, I leave and shan't return There's lot's of things you need to learn I'll exit with a spry left turn Hello, I must be going I am Groucho, as you see My characters are part of me I sing to you this time with glee Hello...I must be G O I N G! (again)

0

Aug 15, 2018

Aug 15, 2018 at 12:17 AM UTC

roger-turner

I must be going .... again

Time moves on as I do too I felt I had to come to you I only came to bid adieu Hello, I must be going I came here once so I could say I am here but can not stay I said goodbye, in my own way Hello, I must be going I am here as you can see I have to say, it can not be I have to leave, it's time to flee Hello, I must be going I'd love to stay and join the fun Stay here all night, at least till one But I'm here to say, I have to run Hello, I must be going There's nothing you can do or say Not one thing will make me stay I'm telling you, I'm on my way Hello, I must be going Now, I leave and shan't return There's lot's of things you need to learn I'll exit with a spry left turn Hello, I must be going I am Groucho, as you see My characters are part of me I sing to you this time with glee Hello...I must be G O I N G! (again)

28