Sarah Palin speaks about David Bowie

The first part of the reading will offer a literary appraisal of David Bowie through Palin’s thinking (she lent the Radiant Elephant her Brain for just a few minutes). This will be followed by a new version of Modern Love .

Hiiii y’all, u ready for some literature talky talky ‘bout Boowie?  U Diamond Dog Scary oxygen Creeps thinking hunky dory life on Mars is better than in America! U thought I’m shying way from literati those bunch of banana creepers who struggle to make nonsense out of a country such as great as ours! Well, people, Bowie wasn’t ‘merican but neither was Byron or Winston Churchill! U know, Bowie struggled cause his name was Jones or sumptin and so he took the name of Jim Bowie, OUR AMERICAN HERO and guess what? People listening, not listening, just picking your noses he go-zes and writes Scary Monsters, ya ya know, “I’ve never done good things, I’ve never done bad things, I never done anything out of the blue” I bet u didn't know I knew that one so he goes dressed in lipstick and this video u know like he’s in water up and into his chest and walking but taking I mean singing and the water up to hear but going down slowly I say give the guy a lifesaver like he’s gonna drown! But Bowie, he no trapper, he not from Alaska where I come from and can float in a swim hole in Alaska, ha ha! git it! ha ha! But that’s not it,it goes, 

“Mom always said, to get things done, you better not mess with Major Tom, and like Messssed up! this become so dam famous I’ve been rolling in white bear butter floundering up seawalls ever since! And so they walk off into the sunset -in this video and all and then I’m thinking but not pondering that Bowie and Byron both have a B in their name and Byron today would be 228 years and five days but Bowie much younger and they both from London and Byron lived near the Palladium where Bowie played in 1969 and he played but some say tuned or zoned out too, he smashed up with Space Oddity, Wow! Odd u call it? Felling like a marshmallow only I’m just sooo proud here to tell you that Princess Margeret of Snowdon -not Edward but the other one- well he I mean she fell in love with Captain Townshend who, who had nothing to do with the WHO because he flew RAF Hurricane during WWII and shot down a German Heinkel 111 —give a hand to the man everybody (clap, clap, clap) So you know Byron was a fighter and so was Bowie and his mother Catherine was taking to the bottle going gulp a gulp but Byron felt no love but Bowie and his father wasn’t drinking only he did drugs later and Captain Mad Jack was abusive back, back in the 18th century so his wife kept drinking -not Bowie- and she’s like going through moooood swings and her boy, u know, Byron? well listen he goes gay with this dude Thomas and he writes these lines,

Ah! Sure some stronger impulse vibrates here,

Which whispers friendship will be doubly dear

To one, who thus for kindred hearts must roam,

And seek abroad, the love denied at home.

People, he -Byron- writes this tutti fruity outta closet love lines could get his head chopped off u know at that time no kaMart, not Target, no AR M15s nothing so he falls in love and then David Bowie he writes Modern love not the same day but maybe 2 centuries later and here it is only it’s been tweaked a little to make it more or less squiggable because love is a big subject and u know that so here, ha ha, it goes:

Modern Love by Byron, Bowie and Lang.

I know when to go out

And when to stay in

Thy cheek is pale with thought, but not from woe,

And yet so lovely, that if Mirth could flush 

I’d sinn

I catch a paper boy  (high pitch)

And dazzle at his deep-blue eyes

But things don't really change

I'm standing in the wind

And my soul of melancholy Gentleness 

Gleams like a Seraph from the sky descending,

But I never wave bye-bye

But I try, I try

There's no sign of life

Above all pain, pitying  distress; 

At once such majesty sweetness blending, 

I worship more, but cannot love thee less.

It's just the power to charm

I'm lying in the rain

But I never wave hallelujah 

But I try, I try

Never gonna fall for starry skies

(Modern love) walks beside me

(Modern love) Which heaven’s gaudy day denies me

(Modern love) gets me to the church on time

(Church on time) terrifies me

(Church on time) Soft as the last drops round Heaven's party

(Church on time) puts my trust in God and man

(God and man) tell of days in goodness spent,

(God and man) no religion

(God and man) A heart whose love is innocent! 

It's just the power to charm

I'm still standing in the wind

But I never wave bye bye

But I try, I try

Never gonna fall for

(Modern love) walks beside me

(Modern love) Which heaven’s gaudy day denies me

(Modern love) gets me to the church on time

(Church on time) terrifies me

(Church on time) Soft as the last drops round Heaven's party

(Church on time) puts my trust in God and man

(God and man) no confessions

(God and man) no religion

(God and man) don't believe in modern love

Ms Universe 2015

Uneven Events

I was walking down 33rd street when someone crossed my path
Once wearing fluffy all in one jacket
He unfairly pointed me out and said:
"Your left heel is unevenly worn."

It was the beginning of a chain of events for
I started to notice a myriad of such uncommon sightings
I dove in a bar to consume 5 drinks
So here I compiled them here for posterity.

When I got to my car I saw that my right disk brake
Though seemingly against all odds would never wear and
Tear to the square of the left disk brake
Had worn down much more
I drove over a bunch of potholes to get to my swimming session

I came out of the pool after a long swim I found that
Whatever fair treatment I had reserved for my ears functionality
And no matter which hemisphere I may have traveled to to maintain them proper
My right ear had produced a gob of wax whereas
My left ear was clean as a whistle

At home I went to my aquarium to feed my sea creatures.
I noticed my Australian Black Nettle jellyfish's left hooded
Bell was more used and thinner than it's right hood but
Then I thought a jellyfish my not have a left or right side to
Contend with

Feeling rather rattled I decided to send some quick messages
To my loved ones and immediately I could sense that my
Right swipe function had worn out faster and was slower than
The left swipe function on my phone
(Of course the fingerprints on my right index finger are more worn
than my right index finger.)

Add caption

Rarely in such a disconcerted state I opted to take a shower.
Yet the shower head sprayed unevenly forcing me to
Press my body against the cold black and white tiles and move
Around the shower stall like a criminal in search of
Insufficient  misbegotten droplets that needed to
Remove the resistant antibacterial film of soap that adhered to my skin
(No I was not worried about opportunistic parasites that 3 times out of 7
make their way into a host for a long sojourn.)

Getting out of the shower I sneezed 3 times and thought about how uneven and unfair
A parachuting program of beavers had been in the 1950s when
Conservationists randomly trapped beaver and air-dropped them into wild regions
Only taking weight, tooth and tail measurements of their specimens
At the time of their capture.

http://www.popsci.com/vintage-video-parachuting-beavers

My only remedy for this state of agitation I decided was to take the A train to
Coney Island and get on the Cyclone as fast as possible.
Indeed, the roller-coaster evened out the imperfect and irregular digestion
That I had been suffering from and
My heartbeat surprisingly levelled to a regular rhythm
I tipped the ticket booth $2 and took 4 minutes to eat a Nahan's hot dog
Without any mustard.

Evergreen Fire

The last time I went to Evergreen Park

I went

Imagining to weld some leaves together
Just like I had learned in school

Yet  the fun
Of kicking up some ashes where

Once lay a bed of leaves
And bins of trashes

Was something
My kids could never get enough.

The last time I went to Evergreen Park
Porcupine needles stuck in my socks

I spoke to an unemployed firefighter who
Longed for those days when his fire-vest went smelting

The heat on his cheek -he joked-
Made him feel Scottish

Battling a Loch Ness flame machine spewing windy thermal columns
As he had to dig trenches whilst the combustion of gasses effaced canopies of vegetation

Those were the days he said.

I reminded him of my childhood fire hero
Smokey the bear

That sometimes I would ponder about whilst drinking and face-timing at my Starbucks in Pasadena
Looking out the window and wondering how far that smoke trail would go?

Like a comet the smokey tail moved on and on
And the coffee's heat stung the back of my throat

Most clients paid little attention to the surrounding skewering valleys
As the act of their swiping was certainly preponderant over shovelling

Certainly

In Evergreen Park I hacked a dry smokeless hack

Then picking up what I though first to be a surviving ashen stick

(It was a metal piece from some fire-fighting equipment)

I drew a fire engine from days gone by.

'

Renaming

Mount McKinley, which was officially named by a New Hampshire-born Seatleite, William Dickey, a short but stout man who wore an oversized, black hat  and who led a gold prospecting expeditions in the 1890’s, didn’t want to support the democrat William Jenning's bid for presidency because he was pro-silver.

Hudson Stuck, looking at the camera,  the first to climb Denali in 1907 was a theologian from London.

 Indeed Dickey favoured William McKinley who went on to become President of the United States and promised to bid for a gold standard that would add nuggets to Dickey’s pockets, hence explaining his choice for Mount McKinley. However, recently it has  been renamed Denali or “the tall one” which was the original name given by the Koyukon Athabaskans. (It can be spelled Deenalee or Deanaliii dependi

ng on whether the Athbaskans where facing the mountain south at 63 degrees 04 minutes and 12 seconds north or North, at 63 degrees 03 minutes and 11 seconds south. It is unlikely the Athabaskans knew how tall Denali, which at 6,190 meters makes it the tallest peak in North America actually was.

The renaming of Mount McKinley did not happen overnight: Jimmy Carter in 1980 tried to negotiate a deal that Ohio congressman Ralph Regula strongly opposed by naming the adjacent national park “Denali Park”. However, some claimed that this only created confusion and only years after congressman Regula’s retirement did a new path open up for the renaming of the actual mountain.

The Mount Blanc at 4810 meters situated at 45 degrees, 49 minutes and 55 seconds north, as legend has it, was named by dentist  Gabriel Michel Paccard, 29, and a Savoyard hunter Jacques Balmat24, who in 1786, were the first to climb the famous mountain.

When they arrived down to the small village of Chamonix they were greeted by a crowd. 

“C’etait tout maa, maa, blanc” exclaimed Dr Paccard, breathing heavily and near exhaustion from having carried a ladder up and down the mountain. In fact, without sunglasses both climbers were blinded by the light  and the mayor of the village, Monsieur Dubonbois, who, like many was a patient of the Doctor,  thought he had said  “Mont Blanc”. (Historians believe the mispronunciation was due to Paccards lips being frozen, despite it being the month of August.)

Today, a recent petition has been put forth to change the name of Mont Blanc, considered banal and obvious to many to “Spenstolatos”. This name is derived from Mr Spencer, Stone and Skarlatos, the 3 Americans who foiled Ayeb El-Khazzani’s attempt to massacre a large number of people who were travelling from Amsterdam to Paris  on August 21, 2015. 

Curiously the 21st of August is also the date when Paccard and Balmat climbed and named Mont Blanc and today’s mayor, Eric Fournier, approved the motion to rename the highest peak in Europe saying, “I was so impressed when these three young men looking like boys in their polo t-shirts, got the legion d’honneur from President Hollande. The only better honour I could think

of is to rename our mountain after them.”

To appease any opposition the Mer de Glace, a nearby glacier, will be renamed the "Mer de Glace Blanc".

Rocking Chair

There rarely came a time when I didn't want to rock no more

The swivel on my chair came at the price of a screech 

The wood planks under my feet perhaps cried under my weight 

As I stretched my legs forward gathering momentum

Pulling my back back with

A magazine firm in my hands

On my porch I rocked beyond the chirps of birds

Amongst 

Unpreturbed

Verbs

That swerved and veered off my original thought of the moment

And though I strayed

The rocking chair brought me back to

Where I started 

John Kennedy used a rocking chair

It was rumoured he almost fell off his chair during

The Cuban Missile Crisis

And due to his bad back

He rocked in the Oval Office and

On Air Force One

The Etruscans and Trojans thought of rocking even before the arch was invented
However the instability of their early mechanisms had horses falling and
Slaves scrambling for a foothold

Just like some modern inventors concocted the Rocking Bed or

The Rocking Table

Not all things that Rock, Rock

Still, as I sit rocking in this chair I cannot help but think of the passing

Seasons, the Whale on Pluto and my fellow rocker here next to me

(Some think of him a touch tinny) 

Above the creaking you hear his circuits 

A Bible of sounds

My robot, 

Zot

Asks me about passing time

Gives me physical estimations on my vortex and

Chair's trajectories 

Worries if I

Over-rock 

How will I catch myself?

And wonders about circulation, digestion and 

The gestation period in the womb that

I so often talk about.

Pluto, my Pluto

On the day Voyager 2 transmitted the images of Pluto
I ran up the Empire State building
Hoping to get a clear image on my Ipad
Clear of the fray of the Apple

It was a clear night
People were taking in views of an obscure
Central Park or
The downtown view of the Freedom tower

And there it came from
3 billion miles away
A celestial body like no other orb
That seduced my eye

Pluto more than Plato has always had a place in my mind
True its erratic orbit and
It's brazen relationship with
Neptune

For years fascinated me as the
Orbiting of these two planets
Come oh so close to colliding
Every 500 years or so

But I am undeniably seduced by the revelation  of
Pluto's topography: there is the "heart" a region of
Nitrogen snow spread across 1500 km
A curvy stretch resembling Miami to New Orleans

That shines out of the darkness exposing
The dark nymph that awaits
Cupid to pluck her with his
Arrow

The ice mountains
Hold us agape
A Rocky mountain genesis
Reflecting active geomorphology in the gym

Let our eyes ski down to Cthulhu or
Clulu or C'thuhu or Thu Thu -for commoners
It's nicknamed the "Whale"-
A rather elongated dark region that

Compared to another batty yet wondrous mysterious expanse
Is the "Brass knuckles" formation
Sure it could have been named "Al Pacino Knuckles" or "Humphrey Bogart Knuckles"
But Pluto is and always has been here to provide punch even as we scan its

Craterless gulf-scape,
Where the "donut"
A 300 km coconut sprinkled body that

Accosts the tail of the "Whale" perhaps

Offering a buoyant relief or
A whale of a snack.
Hence on this planet deemed too small to be one
There lies with jelly eyes

Beyond the vision of most powerful scopes
This God of the underworld is
By no means too far or too dark
To evoke and poke a  revelation of original skin

You, a planet born in Sin
With a floppy orbit
Swinging like a Nadia Korbut
Pluto, the time of your love only begins.