Memories of the Sexual Revolution

For Kiki Sammarcelli (1938–2022)

Sexual intercourse began

In nineteen sixty-three

(which was rather late for me) —

Between the end of the Chatterley ban

And the Beatles’ first LP.

—Philip Larkin, “Annus Mirabilis”

Slavery abolished (just in Dubai, I fear);

Lady Chatterley's trial's a tinker’s treat;

Hear tell of JFK's murder on Great Portland Street,

Let's face it, for me '63 was a delicious year,

Route 66's kicks subside in Bel Air

(mea maxima culpa, to be fair);

Revolution over, royalties beguile

Uprising's Thermidorean* smile,

Confused in love, still wanting dates,

Rusticated in Berkeley, quoting Yeats

("Could I but have my wish, [I'd be]

Colder and dumber and deafer than a fish"), †

I want more better stories:

O tempora! . . . O mores! ‡

John Leech, Cicero Throws Up His Brief, in Gilbert Abbott à Beckett, The Comic History of Rome (1851)

* The final phase of the French Revolution after the fall of Robespierre and the radical Jacobins in Thermidor (roughly November in Fabre d'Eglantine's Jacobin calender) 1794 is known as the Réaction thermidorienne.

† William Butler Yeats, “All Things Can Tempt Me . . .” (1916).

‡ Cicero, speech to the Roman Senate against Catiline (63 BCE): O tempora! O mores! = "Oh, the times! Oh, the morals!"

Sunday, September 7, 2025

Pumpkin Fritters

Though once so poor in the South Africa

That even a maid was beyond our means,

Just for a bit, we could afford (it seems)

Sainted Emma of the pumpkin fritters

Issuing out of the cast-iron pan

As quick as we young greedy guts could eat;

Her baby cooing in an orange crate.

Stashed down there by our unshod feet.

Cinnamon sugar handy to anoint,

Her frittered art beat out a Michelin Three Star joint.

When Emma presently came no more,

We boys knew that we were really poor.

In the upshot, though I learned to cook,

Pumpkin fritters still excel a recipe book.

Wednesday, September 3, 2025

Fiddlesticks!

You will always be having to get up from your chairs

To move on to other heartbreaks, be caught in other snares.

—John Ashbery, "Some Words" (from the French of Arthur Cravan)

Saperlipopette ! Hergé exclaims inTintin

(Rimbaud's word, when he was ten).*

Fiddlesticks! Just smoke and mirrors!

(Why violin bows mean bullshit, guess!)

Garbage infests the tainted rills

(On Staten Island called Fresh Kills),

Land-filled by Social Media shills,

Spilling into laps that quiver;

Spawning there, the longings shiver.

No doubt, we need strong terms for mess!

These Mother Language may address,

If we for starters want confess.

 *Arthur Rimbaud, Proses et vers de collège (1884).

Friday, August 29, 2025