Double Cathexis of Dead Metaphors, image by Daniel Y. Harris
David Alpaugh,
Four Double-Title Poems
RAPPEL…
Yourself
down the slope of Mount Ever Rest
after
being dropped at the summit by a copter.
Who
ever heard of an uphill skier? Descent’s
sine
qua non—where vulnerable skin’s aloft:
Vici.
Vidi. Veni. Conquer first. Arrive later.
Rappel
yourself down to the Fat Lady’s chamber,
million
pound dowry in hand—as Eddie croons
Oh
My Papa from the penthouse of a port in air.
See
that bloke, halfway down, gathering samphire
to
earn a thin dime? Poor sod just has 1 way to go
CLIMB…
BOOTS…
On
the ground—out of fashion with the jet set
who
prefer to rise—eagle like—to 30,000 feet;
but
remain wildly popular on New York City
streets;
where Uggs, Trips, and Birkenstocks
prance—as
The Ball descends on 20-whatever.
Boots
on the ground have arm-chaired warriors,
eager
to see leather slogging through hell again.
Nor
does sand object to being battered and abused:
like
Liza, as ’enrey ’iggins wolfs down ’is kippers;
turns
’is back on love and cries, “Fetch my bloody”
SLIPPERS…
THOUGHT…
What
it did? Took a shit and ran! Dead metaphor,
to
be sure, but—so pertinent—I wish it were alive.
I
love its frank pragmatism. It always takes care of
business
before turning tail on whatever comes to
mind.
It’s so not sicklied o’er with the pale cast of
Thought.
Had Wittenberg taught Hamlet that saw
instead
of Stoicism 101, Fencing 222—Claudius
would
die at prayer in 3 / 3; and Ophelia, Laertes,
Gertrude,
Polonius, the Sweet Prince himself, all
be
alive in 5. Swordplay foiled (Olé!) by a rusty
CLICHÉ…
MECHANICAL…
Engineering
springs to mind—then Bergson
on
Le Rire. What do cockroaches & Malvolio
have
in common? Chitin makes us laugh or
howl.
Put either on a stage and click-clickety-
clack,
they’ll tap-dance the aural essence of
Mechanical.
That cosmic Malvolio, Satan,
draws
laughter from Milton’s God. Dante
ends
his Commedia with a universal smile.
Risibility
can’t be repressed, even by deity.
Heaven
and earth splitting sides—at lack of
SPONTANEITY…
—David
Alpaugh
The double-title poem has two five
line stanzas.
The
first title reads into the poem or states its opening motif.
The
first word in the second stanza is italicized and identical to the first title.
At
least one word in the last two lines of the second stanza rhymes with the exit
title.
Double-titles
embody both locality and “spooky action at a distance.”
Their
aim is to treat language as both particle and wave.
