I am reminded

by Alex Gildzen that yesterday was the day Janis Joplin was born 63 years ago. & that reminded me of the circa 33-year old poem below, which I think I may have posted here before, but what the hell.

VERLAINE & VAN GOGH, JIMI & JANIS J.

To build from the bones out
or the skin in - which way
is better? Best not to have to build
at all, I suppose; but some of us
do fall apart, have been found
drowning in the desert or exposing
our pricks to schoolboys. & then the
famous ones, dying of smack or
syphilis, or else shut up for singular
acts of love - the severing of an
earlobe, the shooting of an
eighteenyear old poet in the wrist.

Poor Baron Frankenstein - he had
to use stolen organs, & draw
his power from electrical storms. Now
there are switches, & pumps & plastic
valves, & parents waiting in the wings
for a chance to give their child’s
heart to someone else. & those who owe
their prolonged life to scientific artifice
no longer bear the name of monster.

But the golem still exists, still wears the
Shem Ha-Mephorash , the holy name,
upon his forehead. & stays alive through
needles in the arm, cocks in the mouth;
those locked-door transfusions that maintain
the fluids our bodies need to keep on going.