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| A cake of white tea |
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| A gong fu tea set, according to what I was told |
So we had a tea party on May 11, 2021! I was excited because I am a tea nut and during the COVID lockdown, I had nobody to share my green and oolong and Pu'er with. It bummed me out. But my friends came over today, and we drank tea and read poems for each other. Since I'm such a ham, I videotaped my reading of one poem. Given that it was a tea party, I was, of course, appropriate. The poem is delicate, witty, and, oh, so civilized. It is called "Your Majesty the Motherfucker." Hang on tight! —Jeff
If you're new to the blog and wonder who this ragamuffin is, my website is below. I would describe myself as a wayward and off-the-wall writer-intellectual, and I have the rather bizarre and conflicting credentials to prove it. I hold a Ph.D.—having studied with major poets and a leading philosopher—and have, essentially, been employed in working class jobs in the human services field for the last 10 years. All people's lives are absurd to a certain degree, but I do sense that mine is especially absurd. I choose to embrace the absurdity and ride it all the way to what could be called home, like a surfer on a great wave. That's the existential place where the ironies contained in the very title of the above poem reside.
I read widely and write in a variety of forums, some under an assumed name. I use the assumed name not for aesthetic reasons, but for eminently practical ones. I like writing essays, some very wild and some quite straightforward, and examples of them are on this blog. For more on me, see JeffersonHansen.com. Text of “Your Majesty the Motherfucker” below.
Your Majesty the Motherfucker
For carissa who, sadly, heard me come up with the line
design of detriment & vehicle turning at sharp corners to whistle around the last loop of lions loosened from the zoo's hold—do you wish you had your mommy tonight?
being accosted
on the corner by
Christians trying to save you
& you go on a
lecture about how
if there is a God
He is the God
of Job
of cruelty
who plays with us as
tumbling dice
you call yourself
"Your Majesty
the Motherfucker"
and recite a poem
about facing down the red
eyes of death
& explain you would
rather live knowing
death is the end
making all this
so much more
than mere preparation
malingering mitigation running the risk of misaligned priorities & attempts to scale a parallel universe that only might exist because we are what we forgot we were
they ask if you,
Your Majesty, believe
in sin and you
ask if a master
raping a slave
is sin
and when they say, "yes"
you say, "Then
Abraham is
a sinner by your
Good Book's
own account."
You ask if
setting up a friend
to die
in order to steal
his wife is a
sin
& say into their
startled eyes,
"If so, then
King David is a sinner."
excoriated renditions running down the night of intrepid violations and witchcraft revelry when lions go wild because suppression and repression lead only to life as skipped & skimped, weakened & wizened, haunted by shadows of what could have been
they say,
"you need saving"
you ask "from what
a God cruel enough
to kill Job's kids
just to mess
with him so
that he might
prove a point to
Satan? It's in
your Good Book"
they ask if
you love Jesus
and you counter not
if he denies
loving
if Christ hates loving
I would rather
be anywhere
than with him even
hell itself
haunted by the passing of the pauses and a pristine juggernaut as untimely meditations about the sideswipe and the cranked craft tripped at just this angle to move you where you didn't go
the Christians ask
that you read
the Good Book
& you say
"I already read
the stupid
thing three
times & I have
no desire
to get saved
on its terms"
you walk on in the
night cracked
urban sidewalks
blaze white
a man pours Pepsi
onto his hand
could it be
an antiseptic?
the moon the man child the missive of darkness demanding of you a stance posture that gives into the tension of passing taut as tiger skin supple as peppered leather
down the street
dust blows
into the teeth
of breeze
leaves swirl
up and around
and reattach
to branches
other leaves roll
down the street
rustling silently
skin pricks
to voice of man
graveled
over electric guitar
crude battery amp
squeaky sounds
seems to know
about four songs
sideways through skinny door in ether another place where balloons pop inward & food is ingested through pores of skin where gravity goes parallel & you whistle from belly button
you dive into
hole-in-wall
saloon where
first time ever
you hear Captain
Beefheart over bar
speakers
chunky beat slashing
atonal guitars
bass clarinet
squirming as snake
obscure Doc at
the Radar Station
album “She’s a
hothead/Sizzle
on a spit/
tsssssssssss”
goes Captain & I
peck at beer
thinking of
spastic
dandelions
living where you don’t & trying where you can’t growing where you shrink & the downward trend of upwards say the stocks will ripple their profit through this night only tonight & the crowds on the street dance to the beat of the ticker whether or not they care to notice
“genetically mean”
says the Captain
& you turn to
the woman washing
dishes behind
bar ask if
you can entertain
while she works
tell her of
the story of
the Christians
identify yourself as
“Your Majesty
the Motherfucker”
she turns purple as
the dishsoap
and swirls into
disappearing
if the cry considers the alternate crash the way out of the attic cramp the basement banter insisting on its rasping voice with the Captain himself “best batch yet”
bed beckons
after beer
& you wander home
fall onto mattress
on floor
to dream of the
whistle of whiskey
fog of
forgotten
identity
the key to “freedom”
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