Dear Telephoned,
I have been thinking of you, and station wagons, Mr. Pibb soda, drive through hamburger joints, and the radio. I wonder what these images and memories mean? They might mean I am old, and they might mean I am nostalgic. They might also mean that time telescopes in and out every minute of every day.
Here is a poem:
[Sonnet] You jerk you didn't call me up
You jerk you didn't call me up
I haven't seen you in so long
You probably have a fucking tan
& besides that instead of making love tonight
You're drinking your parents to the airport
I'm through with you bourgeois boys
All you ever do is go back to ancestral comforts
Only money can get—even Catullus was rich but
Nowadays you guys settle for a couch
By a soporific color cable t.v. set
Instead of any arc of love, no wonder
The G.I. Joe team blows it every other time
Wake up! It's the middle of the night
You can either make love or die at the hands of the Cobra Commander
_________________
To make love, turn to page 121.
To die, turn to page 172.
"[Sonnet] You jerk you didn't call me up" by Bernadette Mayer, from A Bernadette Mayer Reader. Copyright © 1968 by Bernadette Mayer. Used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.
And here is a song that goes with it.
And here is another.
That's all!
