Nice little montage of poets' graves by the Academy today.
(Of course, some of us prefer to go au naturel.)
Here's a little tribute to one of nature's creepiest.
Vulture
My name is Charon.
I am the ferryman
across this black river
to the land of the dead.
My name is Charon.
Someone must dine
on the flesh of the gone.
Their lives flow in my bald brain
after they are nothing but bones.
You can’t take it with you,
but I can. Many complain
about my breath,
but I don’t get mints.
I stay alive by eating death.
My name is Charon.
My beak is the oar,
my stomach the boat.
Please leave your bags at the gate.
The only luggage I take is carrion.
I love the crime scene photo. Reminds me -- in the best way -- of a great ad shot of a 36-year-old Madonna (ripe and luscious) for Versace (pre-Cunanan), posed as dead or sleeping (Snow White's apple tumbling from her hand) on the steps of Versace's Miami house. (Wow. Remember the Nineties?) I love the poem, too. When I lived in my shack in Earlysville, there was a buzzard's roost at the far side of the pasture. Suzy the Dog used to sneak back there to feast on turkey vulture shit. She seemed unable to resist it, but she must have figured out that it was making her sick as a dog, 'cause she finally quit.
ReplyDeletethanks, Jimbo. Work was full of costumed dogs and people today. My costume was supposed to be Mother Nature After 8 Years of the Bush Administration, but everyone seemed to think I was a body dumped in the woods. So I figured, hell, why not?
ReplyDeleteGlad you like the poem. It's an old one. When I read it at Hollins years and years ago, I remember hearing Loren G's huge, wonderful guffaw from the back of the room at the carrion line. Overall, I think I prefer to get a huge snort than the usual almost inaudible sigh that comes from the audience at the end of a poem!
Vulture poo ... mmmm ...
Poor Mother Nature! There she was, so abused that she was not recognized, just a body dumped in the woods.
ReplyDeleteJust yesterday, my boyfriend told me he wouldn't take his overcoat with him to New York because he didn't want to check a bag. He said, "I want to go with just the carry on." I said, "Why, you old buzzard." He did not guffaw. (Okay, maybe I said, "Just like an old buzzard." It's just a slip! It doesn't mean a thing! It's like George Will saying of Ann Coulter, "The less said about him the better.")