Laugh at the End of the World

by Knott, Bill

• ISBN13: 9781880238844
• ISBN10: 1880238845
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-05-01
• Publisher: Boa Editions

Summary

Three decades of the Knott at his iconoclastic best, showcasing his versatility & ironic wit. Contains many Knott poems which are not otherwise available in print.

Excerpts

Chapter One

THE MAN WHO MARRIED HIS CHECKOUT LANE

Daily, in the supermarket where I go,

I gravitate to this one lane--the one

that's most full--you know: the busiest one.

Have I fallen in love with my checkout lane?

Well, I am male, I feel drawn to this aisle;

its openness is shameless, selfishly exciting;

the real way it squeezes my shoppingcart

and deigns to crowd me in. Oh my checkout lane

has the longest wait of any--though unlike

all these others in line, I won't leaf through the life

those tabloids provide rumors of: none of them

are beautiful as what infills me as I enter

as I am queued up for that brief orgasm

as my cash is on the counter and I am free.

ADULTERER WITH NO MOUTH AMUSES WORLD

Not having a mouth is no joke! Imagine an ax

left by somebody, sinksank into some treetrunk:

and each day you go by, the embedded ax seems

higher, higher, until finally, one day, jumping,

you're just barely able to brush the fine of the

grain of the bottom of the axhandle with your

fingertips--and yet the tree has not grown. Nor

have you shrunk. Imagine: imagine trying to

explain this to someone if you didn't have a mouth.

SONG OF BRASÍLIA

From city to city

We trailed at our heels

Smiling like a suitcase

Through the passport reels

And wasn't it

Good to find a new town

With a new round

Of stars and bars and fabulous

Stays in hotel towers

Wasn't it good to have a slow one

And hour away the hours with a glow on

And when the blush was off we could just cough

And say Well it's time to go on

We could just doff our hats

And say Sorry but I've got to catch

The next wind that's blowing

But alas

This is the last

City on old earth

We'll have to stay here until

A newer one is built

We had combed Kansas City long ago

And Bangkok was old-hat

And oh gosh Paris we can only bear

Just before or just after a guerre

Yes for us the streets were no longer rolled out

We shuddered no matter what the conductor called out

We yawned in fear

We had been everywhere that's anywhere

On this old map

Then one day we were told that

In the middle of Brazil

Completely surrounded by jungle

Is the place to which we could travel

A brand new city was beginning to be built

Yes a giant new city was being mowed out

Of the jungle

And we were saved

But all too fast

This has become the last

City on our planet

And we're trapped down here until

A newer one is somewhere built

Each day we scour the papers for skyscrapers and their kind

And we try not to think of the precincts we left behind

Cause every true traveler knows

You can't go back to those

Places you've already been

No you can't go back to them

Now this is the last city

We'll see

But one

And we'll rot down here until

The devil

Gives us the key

To that town

ADVICE FROM THE EXPERTS

I lay down in the empty street and parked

My feet against the gutter's curb while from

The building above a bunch of gawkers perched

Along its ledges urged me don't, don't jump.

MOVIE-Q'S

*

Ben Lyons was typically blunt

in I Cover the Waterfront --

his cute co-star Claudette Colbert

could have frenched it: `Ze waterfront, I co-vair.'

*

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman

is not a film appeals to everyone--

but I, I like the way it feels, I guess,

to have a whole town look up my dress.

*

Although by gorgeous Gene Tierney

he was loved, and loved sincerely,

Richard Widmark proved pretty shitty.

The flick? Night and the City.

*

Those Incredibly Strange Creatures Who

Stopped Living and Became Mixed-up Zombiesblew

my mind, man. Like wow! (--Was I crazy? Was I sick?

Maybe I shouldn't have watched it through that Thai-stick.)

*

I know Jack Nicholson played a cameo--

and Elton John played a song or so--

and Ann-Margaret played his mommy--

but who the hell else was in Tommy ?

*

It's a crime shame that that scene where

Sean Penn tied you know Madonna to a chair

and then put on her dress and licked her thighs

got like totally cut out of Shanghai Surprise .

*

How many of you gazeekoids went yumyum

Watching that transmutated geek Jeff Goldblum

Rip off his own ear and eat it? The Fly was great!

(And if he'd unzipped his fly, ripped that off, and ate?)

    Note: I don't know if the Movie-Q constitutes a form per se, but I made up

some

    rules for it: the complete name of the film must appear in a quatrain rhymed

    AABB. The Movie-Q must try to be funny, or piquant, or pointed. Etc., etc.,

    though actually I can't think of any more rules.

TO MY PLANETARY CO-OCCUPANTS

How would you prefer to meet your fate--

by Nature or Culture?

(Nature: snakebites lightningstrikes cliffslides etc.)

(Culture: nukebreaks pesticidisms ethniccleansings etc.)

--If an alligator swallowed you

would you consider that demise purer

than if freedom fighters blew up

your commuter flight?

Or would you go vindicated re your belief in

human sovereignty

when a virus broadcast by the the CIA

got you (maybe it already has)--

If it were up to me, I would take

centuries/eons in deciding this question,

but since it isn't, since it's a question of since,

and since the number of options in

the category of Nature

seem to be getting extincter and extincter,

I ask you again to choose--

In fact, I beg you to make your choice

and make it quickly,

especially if it is to die via me.

THE RUINS-READER

I-beams uphold that wall

You-beams bolster me: guess

Which one is going to fall.

UNSPEAKABLE

    A comma is a period which leaks.

MY FAVORITE WORD

"Attentionspan" is my favorite word

because I can never finish

reading it all the way through.

FRAMEPOEM

First, make a 100 minute movie. Then take the 1

million 440 thousand frames, or stills: take each

frame, blow it up, print it, put a frame around it,

then take all 1 million 440 thousand pictures, hang

them in a gallery, consecutively in a line so that

the first frame of the movie is the first picture

inside the door and the last, last: you get the

idea. Then have the people who come in RUN past

the 1 million 440 thousand pictures, so that in

this way they become both spectator and projector.

SONG

When my shadow falls off of me

I yell "So long!"

But when I fall off my shadow

It cries "Long so!"

It seems obvious

That one of us

Is either falling wrong

Or calling wrong.

DEATH AND THE MOUNTAIN

"There is no theme for old age

    but death and the mountain."

              --Arab proverb

You should see the treeline on

that mountain

of update bulletin news;

no avalanche can blacklist me--

The twigline on the tree

said: You should see him on talkshows

sandpapering his

mug off totempoles, carved

of old, of pine--

Just past the christline

on that cross is

one sitcom one summit of this; scarred

as a skyline of thorns it grew

up, imperious, pious.... To

blindfold the precipice

before leaping

from it, okay; but try keeping

a straight face

when the punchline comes "kersplat"--

There, old skin-quilt,

saint peacock hedge! Feverchart

that wedges the door shut.

I see it

he said. I see my mountain's peak-sized fate.

BEDDYBYE

    Just hope that when you lie down your toes are a firing-squad

3 A.M.

Time to pare down, pull in, simplify;

--I'll buy a dark coat, move my lips when I read

the bestseller lists....

ANOTHER COLD WAR POEM

So what if you lived only

One second longer

Than we

Did: to us

You will always be known as the Survivor.

AT THE MUSEUM THIS WEEK

Poland Through The Centuries a touring

Exhibition of maps drawn

By German and Russian cartographers reveals

There never was a Poland.

MYOPIA

I know that blinking lubricates

the sight and keeps it safe--

but did this World-Eye really

need the lid of my brief life?

ESCAPE PLAN

I examine

my skin

searching for

the pore

with EXIT

over it

THE DAILY ROUNDS

I keep a TV monitor on my chest

so that all who approach me

can see themselves

and respond appropriately.

QUICKIE

Poetry

is

like

sex

on

quicksand

viz

foreplay

should

be

kept

at

a

minimum

MORE USELESS ENVY

When I imagine the cameras of fame

homing in on me for a closeup,

I back away, my back pressed against

my eyes nose mouth: the reign of the same.

Failure has surrounded me with flesh,

with human-remaining-human features--

Which is no consolation--Which does

not make up for all the psychic scars

those glitter-gifted faces inflict upon

the crowd wherein I'm crammed

trying to be as inconspicuous as I am!

Daily I watch the famous zoom past.

God, I wish I could persuade some void

to synopsize its emptiness with this.

Copyright © 2000 Bill Knott. All rights reserved.