Diane Corson, Money House
Gabby Asks Other Coffee Bar Customers Not to Gawk When She Conducts Counseling Sessions
Free from diesel-fumes and crowded coaches,
but still tracked by armies of averted
eyes whose aghast glares condemn my size
before they shift to ads for 5G phones;
for them, for those who find my abundant
BMI abhorrent, I add extra
stomp to my stride, jacking up the jiggle
my self-ordained judges want me to hide.
Yes, like the jalapeño scone whose crumbs
get caught in my chins while I wait for my date,
I am a flavor few favor, a kink
kitten catering to hounds who savor
scents kennel mates resist, a well-padded
paramour supplying infinite squish.
But does my appealing to fewer cash
app patrons give grounds to your loathing
filled looks because my body overflows
XXL clothes? I mean, come on, the high
caloric concentration I maintain
can’t infect your underfed physique. Say
we spoke and I invoked desire for hard
cider rather than the beer you revere,
would that earn the same disdain? I’m human,
another hominin who needs a side
hustle to cover what her mom’s Medicare
will not, a bulky bawd happy to hawk
OnlyFans mukbang streams to explorers
eager for adipose adventures; plus
provide face-to-face seven-course feeds once
upfront fees are sent. Excuse me if I
persist to exist despite your wish all
adults covet the same erotic dish.
So, please save your arrows of ocular
scorn for sinners engaged in egregious
acts like grooming grade school kiddos for porn
cameos or spewing cubic meter
upon cubic meter of second-hand
carcinogens via Phillip Morris
cigarettes. My clients and I do what
we do with mutual consent. Passive
aggressively glare at nascent Nazis
strategizing a revamped American
apartheid while sipping cookie butter
lattes if you must, but eavesdrop elsewhere
when it comes to us. If you heard our words
undisturbed by intolerant taboos,
his resolute claim he’ll put another
50 pounds on my frame is just a cute
flirt by a nerd in a UCLA
sweatshirt. When I promise my unstylish
Adonis I will sit on his face if he
keeps up the pace of triple whip mochas,
fetter your fetish fear, flexing focus
from our divergent desires to the fact
I offer clients a way to relax
their unconvincing masks of vanilla
normality, a pause in the you can’t
choruses where these muzzled gods can shout
Upanishads to the joys of being
odd, a pin to pop the raw paradox
caused by living alone enmeshed in mobs.
While it may seem heresy, what we do
here amounts to necessary therapy,
so please shelf the dreary tyranny driven
by your sexual insecurity.
_______________________________
Chuck Von Nordheim
Review by John Garmon
This is a work of art. It delivers a strong kick. I guess it is written by a wonderful bon vivant of language who was bent on disrupting my understanding of extraordinary “ordinary” everyday language.
I like the abundant, unusual imagery of this poem. I enjoy the daring ventures into unique ways of saying things, like, “for those who find my abundant BMI abhorrent, I add extra stomp to my stride, jacking up the jiggle my self-ordained judges want me to hide.” I enjoy the variety in the poet’s use of language, in the phrasing, the common vernacular of the ways language can be used to add the everyday force of the poem’s use of common words and ideas that glean a great deal of sense from the “bulky bawd happy to to hawk.” The whole poem is filled with words that echo well-known advertising and humorous but serious phrase, “like the jalapeno scone whose crumbs get caught in my chins,” and “I am a flavor few favor.”
These lines take me back to Gregory Corso and Allen Ginsberg and Kerouac and the Beat Poets. I feel sure Ferlinghetti would have loved this poem. It’s highly political yet funny in a dead serious way, such as, “Passively aggressively glare at nascent Nazis strategizing a revamped American apartheid while sipping cookie butter lattes” This poet is one rare bird. I like “these muzzled gods can shout Upanishads to the joys of being odd, a pin to pop the raw paradox caused by living alone enmeshed in mobs.” This reminded me of the book, The Lonely Crowd, a 1950’s sociological analysis by David Riesman, Nathan Glazer, and Reuel Denney, a study of American loneliness. This is a poem that I love.