View: “Ode to the Mohawk” and “Verse, Chorus, Verse” Crab Orchard Review: “The N-Word” Rio Grande Review: “Taking Stock: Rick’S Toy Box”
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Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2009 Hot Stare America Bryan Douglas Cox Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES HOT STARE AMERICA By BRYAN DOUGLAS COX A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2009 The members of the committee approve the dissertation of Bryan Douglas Cox defended on April 9, 2009. ____________________________________ David Kirby Professor Directing Dissertation ____________________________________ Martin Kavka Outside Committee Member ____________________________________ James Kimbrell Committee Member ____________________________________ Erin Belieu Committee Member Approved: __________________________ Ralph M. Berry, Chair, Department of English The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thank you to the editors of the following journals in which these poems first appeared: Chiron Review: “Ode to the Mohawk” and “Verse, Chorus, Verse” Crab Orchard Review: “The N-Word” Rio Grande Review: “Taking Stock: Rick’s Toy Box” iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract v AM-FM The Rock-N-Bowl 2 Lines Composed while Hunched Over the World’s Last Decent Jukebox 4 Ode to the Mohawk 5 Punk Rock Portrait 7 Critical Mass 8 The N-Word 10 Verse, Chorus, Verse 11 Redemption Song 13 Post Rent-Check Blues 14 Broken Daybreak Duets 16 AM-FM 17 Exhibit A On the Suicide of a Former Student 20 Passing Through 22 Ten-Minute Visit 23 Quietly Off-Key 25 Self-Portrait as Guitar 26 Folk Artist 28 Born Under a Bad Sign 29 End Times 31 Deliverance 32 Just Lexicons 34 Exhibit A 35 Punchlines OK Walt Whitman 38 Commencement 40 Still-Life with T-Shirt & Crosswalk 41 Holy Land 43 V-Day Bouquet 44 New World Orders 46 At the Movies 47 Underage Snuff 49 Punchlines 50 Taking Stock: Rick’s Toy Box 52 After All 53 Biographical Sketch 55 iv ABSTRACT Ranging from the elegiac to sarcastic, humorous to furious, distant, alienated, amused, and intimate, the poems in Hot Stare America aim to balance social critique with praise, protest poems with odes, the blues with jokes, nostalgia, love, and a sense of hope for those people and places that have helped to shape their speaker’s life and origins. From dramatic situations set in bars, rock clubs, restaurants, coin-op laundromats, classrooms, and adult bookstores, this musically formal manuscript traces the poetic legacies of the English language, versions of democracy we have inherited and will pass down, as well as the bizarre ironies, juxtapositions, and paradoxes that define American culture. The Clash once dubbed themselves “The Only Band that Matters.” In a similar vein, this collection of poems ultimately settles on good love, drink, laughter, and music in all its forms as the only sources of redemption or escape that truly matter to its speaker, this protest singer. v AM-FM Somewhere in my soul There’s always rock-n-roll —Joe Strummer, “Long Shadow” *** 1 The Rock-N-Bowl —Snooks Eaglin (1937-2009) Last night, old man, I got word of your death… A little less soul, rhythm left with us, I thought, then, drunk, remembered that first time I heard you play, live, makeshift backing band, No frills stand-in bassist, three-piece drum kit, Wives, sons, grandchildren watching just off-stage In some New Orleans bowling alley, lanes Packed with spare strikes, as white girls hollered out Above cheers, slurred chord changes, yelled requests For “Boogie On Reggae Woman,” the one & only number to halfway stump your wicked Right-hand technique that entire two-hour set. Blind “Human Jukebox,” critics call your style Smooth, effortless, but I felt raw, worked, rent, Arthritic knuckles knotted as stained wood, Limp “cigar fingers” drug down threadbare strings, &, stiff-necked, your electric black guitar… how small Its body looked, held, child-like, on bent knees, Worn lap, palm spanning over eight full frets, It seemed, as you picked your way, thumbed each verse, Bridged riff, chorus, then asked your audience For forgiveness, for falling ill, so sick, in fact, You excused yourself to use their restroom, Coughed phlegm from callused lungs into your hand- Kerchief between those few late cover tunes, Till that co-owner / MC, close friend of yours I learned, years after, through local obits, Where he retold tall tales, one of them rare Road trips you ever took, your group so soused They all dubbed you best suited to drive back across State lines, so, you snatched the wheel, steered, by Braille, Dirt trails, soft shoulders, gravel ditch, hugged slow Turns you knew by heart, true as faith, grace notes, 2 Till you reached home, but, in real-time, your boy Just hit the house sound, your lone single on His lit juke, standard cheapskate parting gift. Performance cross-dressed as mock sock-hop dance, I still recall how he pranced on-stage, grabbed That mic, jumped straight into ripped splits, as if The hardest working man in show business, Passed out pink hoola-hoops to fans, tight crowds Of league-night bowlers headed towards locked cars, Clocked engine block ticks in dark parking lots, Thick cigarette smoke let out like laughter, Stray applause, how prisoners might escape Jail cells, bags zipped, bars humming along to Love songs, a little less blues, spirit music left… On earth, as it is, lent hymns of scorecards, Stalled ball returns, oiled gutters, that gig drained Its pockets, spent tickets poured past glass doors Before you sighed, stretched to pick up your own Mute instrument, kick-start one more encore. 3 Lines Composed while Hunched Over the World’s Last Decent Jukebox Stiff bourbon on the rocks with just a splash of water. Well hooch, rum, sour mash served straight up. Hot Kegs of ale tapped warm as gut-rot in red plastic cups. Unless some poor fuck feels flush. Then, it’s top shelf, Till spare cash acts tipsy as the rest of us drunks: crashed On pills, dope, rusted beds stripped off broke pickups. We’ll drop loose change on lit jukes, chase shot hopes, Throw up hands like ripped crooks caught (just off-frame) By rerun cops: all those mock tape decks stuffed with hash. Let bent punks mouth sick bootleg licks friends punched in Like clocks, since, who cares? Counts loss enough to dance, Laugh, cast orders dry as our bartender’s sense of humor Besides this rented music? Soundtracks mixed to cure Our own thin blood: Help! Shout! Let’s go get stoned. Listen. No one I know drinks for taste alone. 4 Ode to the Mohawk It is so American, fire. So like us. —Larry Levis From the Algonquian, slaughtered native people, Whose name’s literal translation equals: cannibal. Deep roots hacked by hand, slave-hatchet, transplanted Into this haircut rebellious as shrink-wrapped packs Of low-tar cigarettes, some black, studded leather jacket. By far this is our greatest rock-n-roll swindle: To take war & murder, add a little egg yolk, Vaseline, old mixture of bonding cement & bones From animals boiled down to glue, & make street-punk’s Ultimate symbol for cool. Yet, witness this gesture, True tenderness between best friends: one who lifts Used padlocks, chains & dog collars from his part-time Pet shop job after school, while a couple more swipe Drugstore bleach & hair-dye to cast their foot-long Liberty spikes into flags smoldering red, white, & blue. But before they do, they must help each other guide Dull blades over dry skin, thin layers of blood, skull, In this constant struggle of substance over style. How naturally they seem to co-opt, or adopt, the look of Tribes that once scalped like tickets their distant ancestors. Notice, in this blurred rearview mirror, each safety pin Hooked in rough, pink cheeks, nails bent through earlobes. Listen close to that radio blare their favorite hardcore tunes. The last in their glue-head crew, who still needs to steal His step-parent’s new car, so, together, they can all ditch class & drive, full-tilt, the hundred-plus miles to tonight’s show. 5 Just watch how he’ll kill the engine, let it cruise downhill. Stiff, bobble-head voodoo dolls, half-stuck out of four cracked windows. 6 Punk Rock Portrait Born white, pissed, privileged, one more well-versed freegan raised By parents with advanced degrees in business law, Home economics. Class? Rage? Just some thrift store phase: Electric-blue hair, pawnshop guitar, fists ground raw As beef. On stage, old-school trash acts zines call scream-core Play “Hate & War.” Bands on tour spray-paint amps, brand new Conversion vans: This Machine Kills Dead Metaphors… Read: rehearsed encores, feedback, power chords, tattoo Sleeves straight-edge SHARPs in Docs still rock, sick of it all, Pits full of screen-print faux-hawks, guest list fans, meth, sex, Scenes meant to shred rules, bootleg labels stripped as malls, Merch tables sold-out before Vets Hall shows, sound checks. Part lifestyle, third-wave rude boy mixed with twists of ska, Part snapshot pose tongue-stud punks perform, drunk by noon, Cheap cover charge paid to skank, mosh in mock-applause, Half keep time, make rent, do, stay, en masse, just out of step, tune. 7 Critical Mass Tonight, the Civic Center plays host to the Panhandle leg Of Cher’s first farewell world tour. So, traffic jams for her, not coached activists on rollerblades, Mountain bikes, barefoot, stuck pedaling “change” Aimed at barricading commuters who break-pump diamond lanes Home from work—each make, compact through pickup, Trapped in airborne cubicles of soot hacked up like pitch-black Blood clot lungs by coal miners, butchers, Some novice golfer’s turf-toed club—to help protest our abuse Of gas: last Friday, every month.