10/30/2019
CALIBAN’S FEATURE OF THE WEEK
This week’s featured poem is “Thomas Jefferson and the American Hallucination” by John Bradley.
http://calibanonline.com/CO34/html5forpc.html?page=12
(Calibanonline #34, p. 12) Merging a fascination with American history and a truly hallucinatory surrealism to create a tool for his explorations, Bradley makes us look hard at who we think we are vs. who we are and have always been. The only other writer who comes to mind in this regard is William Carlos Williams and his masterwork “In the American Grain.”
THOMAS JEFFERSON AND THE AMERICAN HALLUCINATION
With my last indentured breath, I, Thomas Jefferson,
departing our collective American hallucination, hereby grant:
to Laurie Anderson, Martha Washington’s coffee grinder,
which also serves as hearing aid; to Diane Arbus,�
a tattoo of Monticello wherever you’d like; to Joan Baez,
the song of a wren installed in a bee hive hidden
in a velvet hand grenade; to Lead Belly, the lower�
third of the Mississippi; to Sitting Bull, a Kevlar�
umbrella; to John Coltrane, my last tin of radiation-proof
biscuits; to Henry Ford, an albino Amazonian bat;�
to Kitty Genovese, a bathtub filled with lilac milk;�
to Harry Houdini, a grave with a trapdoor; to Mother
Jones, a barn owl stuffed with shark teeth; to Billy�
the Kid, incontinent insomnia; to Mary Todd Lincoln,�
my mountain climber’s axe; to Richard Nixon, my second
best bed, with a trap door; to the Marx Brothers,�
the Marx sisters; to Dylan Roof, all the statues of Robert
E. Lee; to Ethel Rosenberg, a hummingbird parachute;�
to Patti Smith, Martha Washington’s mouth harp,�
which also serves as an espresso maker; to Twyla Tharp,�
a dance with the angel exterminator; to Sally Hemmings—
ah, sweet Sally—everything but everything else.
John Bradley’s work has also appeared in issues 2, 4, 6, 9, 12, 13, 15, 18, 22, 25, 27, and 36.
CALIBAN’S FEATURE OF THE WEEK
This week’s featured poem is “Thomas Jefferson and the American Hallucination” by John Bradley.
http://calibanonline.com/CO34/html5forpc.html?page=12
(Calibanonline #34, p. 12) Merging a fascination with American history and a truly hallucinatory surrealism to create a tool for his explorations, Bradley makes us look hard at who we think we are vs. who we are and have always been. The only other writer who comes to mind in this regard is William Carlos Williams and his masterwork “In the American Grain.”
THOMAS JEFFERSON AND THE AMERICAN HALLUCINATION
With my last indentured breath, I, Thomas Jefferson,
departing our collective American hallucination, hereby grant:
to Laurie Anderson, Martha Washington’s coffee grinder,
which also serves as hearing aid; to Diane Arbus,
a tattoo of Monticello wherever you’d like; to Joan Baez,
the song of a wren installed in a bee hive hidden
in a velvet hand grenade; to Lead Belly, the lower
third of the Mississippi; to Sitting Bull, a Kevlar
umbrella; to John Coltrane, my last tin of radiation-proof
biscuits; to Henry Ford, an albino Amazonian bat;
to Kitty Genovese, a bathtub filled with lilac milk;
to Harry Houdini, a grave with a trapdoor; to Mother
Jones, a barn owl stuffed with shark teeth; to Billy
the Kid, incontinent insomnia; to Mary Todd Lincoln,
my mountain climber’s axe; to Richard Nixon, my second
best bed, with a trap door; to the Marx Brothers,
the Marx sisters; to Dylan Roof, all the statues of Robert
E. Lee; to Ethel Rosenberg, a hummingbird parachute;
to Patti Smith, Martha Washington’s mouth harp,
which also serves as an espresso maker; to Twyla Tharp,
a dance with the angel exterminator; to Sally Hemmings—
ah, sweet Sally—everything but everything else.
John Bradley’s work has also appeared in issues 2, 4, 6, 9, 12, 13, 15, 18, 22, 25, 27, and 36.
