Poems

Re: do you speak Coke?

waltz and capsize — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:39:45 GMT

I really like this (her) but don't know why.

this is what my husband says about me. i'm good with that, falcon.

keep us posted.

Re: do you speak Coke?

falcon — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:32:35 GMT

What's this "about"? Alcohol? A society so moralistic as to be effectively, for a developing young man, amoral? The ambiguity of (good) and (content) vs. good and content as in totally content?

I think I don't want to know, yet. I really like this but don't know why. I want to sit with it a spell before I start ripping it up. I suspect the speaker is better off never satisfied.

Re: do you speak Coke?

waltz and capsize — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:27:50 GMT

I, too, wish there was a stronger connection made between Dockery and narrator. In fact, I had meant to mention to Joe that I wasn't altogether sure what the connection was. But that post took about 45 interrupted minutes and by the time I clicked 'post' I was confounded by all these home goings on. I forgot what I was thinking. (I'm working from home these weeks because GoodHusband is in school....) I'd also figured there was a real Dockery execution, but I couldn't find a link. (again, confounded by goings-on.) Can you send it?

I'd remembered there was real cocaine in Coca Cola, hence the name. I remember seeing antique advertisements that it was a good thing to drink after dental work and other painful stuff.

As for your gin and tonic, why, MaryAnn, you woman of class, you! Back in the day (when I used to come-to lost and with unexplained injuries) gin was my drink. I'm sure you haven't had any mystery ear blood of late. For a time after I sobered up, I drank a lot of Coke. I became convinced there was a BIG difference between the can recipe and the 2 litre bottle recipe. I prefered the can by a long shot. For a coupla years there, my AA pals (especially) would give to me 6 packs of Coke in the can for birthdays and Christmas. After a while, I had to quit that, too. I haven't had a Coke (or any soda) in more than ten years.

These days it's water and gallons of coffee for me.

Re: do you speak Coke?

MaryAnn — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:33:13 GMT

hi Monica,

I coulda sworn the poet was black, but I discovered he was white and a prof / poet in your neck of the Illinois woods.

I love the way the first lines conjure up the old myths about Coca-Cola. After Googling, I discovered that Coke did use cocaine until 1904 but now uses cocaine-free coca leaves, which it obtains from the only plant in the US licensed to process coca leaves...

It took me a while to figure out the grammar of some of the sentences, but eventually I figured out that in the second stanza, the narrator is speaking nearly 35 years after Dockery was executed (and yes, there was a Dockery executed in 1959.

Based what you wrote to Joe, I'm presuming the 3rd stanza refers to himself as an addict of something -- liquor, Coke possibly as a substitute for liquor. But I wish Jones had made a stronger connection between Dockery and himself than just the mention of seeking pleasure as the end of the poem.

I used to be a Pepsi girl myself, but now I don't like any carbonated drinks except tonic in an occasional gin n tonic.

Re: do you speak Coke?

waltz and capsize — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:18:16 GMT

Hi Joe and good morning to you,

I read the last stanza as a description of addiction progression. In stanza one, the baptist lady calls Coke "toy likker."

In three, when he turns the focus from his agreement with the Baptists to himself, he begins with I swallowed. and ends with I am never satisfied. in between the swallowing the the never satisfaction, ensues a partial list of alcoholic outcomes: waking up lost, unexplained injuries etc. (coming out of a blackout in a foreign country sounds like a terrible jolt, no?)

anyway Joe, thanks for the comments. your a thoughtful reader and a generous poster.

monica

Re: do you speak Coke?

Soccerfreak — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:12:02 GMT

This is an evocative, a provocative, poem, monica.

I wish the third verse were more like the first two, if I may quibble, and apparently I can.

The first two verses resonate with fact, with a sense of certainty. These are the facts, they say to me: Here are my facts, and here are his facts.

The first three lines of the last verse would seal the deal for me.

The rest of that third verse is the very gabbling the narrator complains about. What to make of it?

By the end, I am wondering if the narrator is a serial killer who has gotten away with yet another crime. I doubt this was the poet's intent, although you may correct me.

This poem is superior without that enigma.

It is early. I will read it again. It is very good. Maybe I will figure out why the poet chose to add those lines. In the meantime, it was a fine (if somewhat depressing :)) start to the day.

Thank you.

Take care,

Joe

do you speak Coke?

waltz and capsize — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 04:15:58 GMT

First Coca-Cola
by Rodney Jones

Maybe a sin, indecent for sure—dope,
The storekeeper called it. Everyone agreed
That Manuel Lawrence, who drank
Through the side of his mouth, squinting
And chortling with pleasure, was hooked;
Furthermore, Aunt Brenda,
Who was so religious that she made
Her daughters bathe with their panties on,
Had dubbed it “toy likker, fool thing,”
And so might I be, holding the bottle
Out to the light, watching it bristle.
Watching the slow spume of bubbles
Die, I asked myself, could it be alive?

When they electrocuted Edwin Dockery,
He sat there like a steaming, breathing
Bolt, the green muscles in his arms
Strained at the chair’s black straps,
The little finger of his right hand leapt up,
But the charge rose, the four minutes
And twenty-five hundred volts of his death,
Which in another month will be
Thirty-five years old. So the drink fizzed
With the promise of mixtures to come.

There it was. If the hard-shell
Baptists of Alabama are good and content
That the monster has died, so am I.
I swallowed. Sweet darkness, one thing
Led to another, the usual life, waking
Sometimes lost, dried blood in the ear,
Police gabbling in a strange language.
How else would I ever gauge
How pleasure might end, walking
Past midnight in the vague direction
Of music. I am never satisfied.