Variation on a Theme
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Variation on a Theme
“Mine is deepest,” claims the tenured professor
as he probes the tiny folds of his navel with a swollen finger.
“Mine protrudes like the stone at Delphi,” proclaims the endowed chair.
“Mine, a sinkhole in the undergrowth,” admits the visiting scholar.
The professor emeritus, a white-haired elder with yellow teeth, waxes poetic
on the power of the solar plexus and something about interconnectedness
and the Grateful Dead.
The associate professor mutters something about the disputation surrounding umbilical
nonseverance and the tradition of the puer aeternus.
A graduate TA hovers over a laptop conducting navel research
while an adjunct instructor who moonlights as an exotic dancer
pinches a tuft of fibers between forefinger and thumb, proclaims,
“I have discovered the secret of the universe!”
“Mine is deepest,” claims the tenured professor
as he probes the tiny folds of his navel with a swollen finger.
“Mine protrudes like the stone at Delphi,” proclaims the endowed chair.
“Mine, a sinkhole in the undergrowth,” admits the visiting scholar.
The professor emeritus, a white-haired elder with yellow teeth, waxes poetic
on the power of the solar plexus and something about interconnectedness
and the Grateful Dead.
The associate professor mutters something about the disputation surrounding umbilical
nonseverance and the tradition of the puer aeternus.
A graduate TA hovers over a laptop conducting navel research
while an adjunct instructor who moonlights as an exotic dancer
pinches a tuft of fibers between forefinger and thumb, proclaims,
“I have discovered the secret of the universe!”
Pose Poem
This little block of prose puts on no pretense, although it does put on a post tense. It calls itself a poem while it is clearly not one of those. It postures as something it is not. Therefore, I shall call it a “pose poem.” It employs short declarative and often incomplete sentences for reasons that are unclear. Like that kid in college who wore a boiler hat and carried around a pipe with no tobacco in it. He introduced himself as Howard J. McDowell, Esquire. Howie, as no one called him, also wore a waistcoat with a pocket watch accoutrement. He complimented this outfit with Chuck Taylor high tops for a sense of irony that no one understood. Did I mention there was no tobacco in his pipe?
This little block of prose puts on no pretense, although it does put on a post tense. It calls itself a poem while it is clearly not one of those. It postures as something it is not. Therefore, I shall call it a “pose poem.” It employs short declarative and often incomplete sentences for reasons that are unclear. Like that kid in college who wore a boiler hat and carried around a pipe with no tobacco in it. He introduced himself as Howard J. McDowell, Esquire. Howie, as no one called him, also wore a waistcoat with a pocket watch accoutrement. He complimented this outfit with Chuck Taylor high tops for a sense of irony that no one understood. Did I mention there was no tobacco in his pipe?
Norman Minnick is the author of three collections of poetry and editor of several anthologies. Most recently, he is the editor of The Lost Etheridge: Uncollected Poems of Etheridge Knight. His poems and essays have been published in The Georgia Review, The Sun, World Literature Today, The Writer’s Chronicle, Oxford American, and New World Writing, among others. Visit www.buzzminnick.com for more information.