Petrarchive – Deadheads in the Dark by Frederick Seidel

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No.10626 Anonymous
Deadheads in the Dark by Frederick Seidel
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The latest edition of the Paris Review included a white male in its poetry section. The lucky fella to break this glass ceiling is laureate Frederick Seidel. Here was his gripping entry:

Deadheads in the Dark

I hear men marching. Trump Trump Trump Trump
It’s jailtime. I'm frightened.
There's nothing to sing except a song
Because it won't be long. It's all gone wrong.
I'm frightened. You too?

Remember standing with me in the dark
After drinks at the Carlyle
Outside your apartment building on Park,
Holding you
And holding calamity away?

I remember
Standing on the stage at Madison Square Garden
With dear Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead
Who died last week, but that night long ago Weir was singing
To thousands of Deadheads in the dark holding votive candles.

The Grateful Dead was an ambulance Double-parked with flashing lights
Dashing into the pizza place to grab a slice.
Weir was worried he'd be recognized outside and mobbed
But wasn't.

And what is America going to eat today at City D,
The La Coupole of upper Broadway?
What could be better than a seat at the counter
For a City Diner regular!
Mel is our manager and manger.

Sitting at the counter with her lunchtime glass of white win,
First chair to the left
As you enter the front door,
Is a living Fra Angelico named Susan Delmonico, sublime, divine, Center of the shrine.

I hear men marching. Trump Trump Trump Trump.
It’s jailtime. I’m frightened.
There’s nothing to sing except a song
Because it won’t be long. It’s all gone wrong.
I’m frightened.
No.10628 Anonymous
Wow it really makes you think
No.10639 Anonymous
People complain about queer poc wombxyn with their post-colonial trauma narratives taking over all of literature but i'm really not seeing the evidence that str8 whyte boys have anything better to offer.
No.10878 Anonymous
The white guys that do get published are just buck broken regardless -- especially the old boomers. They remember shagging a handful of sophomores as a professor decades ago and live in perpetual fear of the metoo-ing so they know how to toe the line.
No.10879 Anonymous>>10880
Fuck you, Bush.

It’s time to get out of Iraq, Bush.

What were you even doing there in the first place, Bush?

You didn’t even get properly elected, Bush.

Are you happy now, Bush?

Fuck you, Bush.
No.10880 Anonymous
>>10879
Where's the lie tho
No.10881 Anonymous>>10882
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MAY OUR SIGNED RIGHT TO BARE ARMS
NEVER BLIND OUR SIGHT FROM SHARED HARM
No.10882 Anonymous
>>10881
We will not be delayed. We will not be masquerade. To the tale of a handmade. We will not let Roe v. Wade slowly fade.
No.10885 Anonymous
I totally forgot her name but lampooning her style of poetry will never not be fucking hilarious and I hope people keep doing it every now and then
No.10893 Anonymous
Diet Coke—sweet but light,
Yet, in his eyes, it’s a curious sight.
Thin and Diet? Never the pair,
A sip of irony in the air.
No.10894 Anonymous>>10919 >>10923
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She is very pretty and it's obvious this is what made her successful, but how could Harvard let this slide? Did nobody ever tell her that her poetry is bad?
No.10918 Anonymous
many will mock my little rhymes
like candy hearted valentines
but this song rings, it is divine
my song sings
my song resounds
my song sounds like doo doo
and when we do it too
what we do is a duet
Amanda Gorman sings with you
No.10919 Anonymous
>>10894
there is no way that black women ever get told their poetry is bad at american universities
No.10921 Anonymous
It’s worn out but I gotta post this one poets.org/poem/jesus-fridge
No.10922 Anonymous>>10930
also the ready player one guys poem about high iq porn is great
No.10923 Anonymous
>>10894
She is looking a bit Chinese--can somebody explain what is going on here?
No.10930 Anonymous>>10931 >>10932
>>10922
Here it is in full

I've noticed that there don't seem to be any porno movies

that are made for guys like me.

All the porn I've come across

was targeted at beer-swilling sports bar dwelling alpha-males

Men who like their women stupid and submissive

Men who can only get it up for monosyllabic cock-hungry nymphos

with gargantuan breasts and a three-word vocabulary

Adult films are populated with these collagen-injected

liposuctioned women

Many of whom have resorted to surgery and self-mutilation

in an attempt to look the way they have been told to look.

These aren't real women. They're objects.

And these movies aren't erotic. They're pathetic.

These vacuum-headed fuck bunnies don't turn me on.

They disgust me.

And it's not that I'm against pornography.

I mean, I'm a guy. And guys need porn.

Fact.

"Like a preacher needs pain, like a needle needs a vein,"

Guys need porn.

But I don't wanna watch this misogynist he-man woman-hater porn.

I want porno movies that are made with guys like me in mind:

Guys who know that the sexiest thing in the world

is a woman who is smarter than you are.

You can have the whole cheerleading squad,

I want the girl in the tweed skirt and the horn-rimmed glasses:

Betty Finnebowski, the valedictorian.

Oh yes.

First I want to copy her Trig homework,

and then I want to make mad, passionate love to her

for hours and hours

until she reluctantly asks if we can stop

because she doesn't want to miss Battlestar Galactica.

Summa cum laude, baby!

That is what I call erotic.

But do you ever see that kind of a woman in a contemporary adult film?

No.

Which is why I'm going to start writing and directing Geek Porno.

I shall be the quintessential Nerd Porn Auteur.

And the women in my porno movies will be the kind

that drive nerds like me mad with desire.

I'm talking about the girls that used to fuck up the grading curve.

The girls in the Latin Club and the National Honor Society.

Chicks with weird clothes, braces, four eyes, and 4.0 GPAs.

Brainy articulate bookworms, with MENSA cards in their purses

and chips on their shoulders.

My porn starlets will come in all shapes and sizes.

My porn starlets will be too busy working on their PhD to go to the gym.

In my kind of porno movies the girls wouldn't even have to get naked.

They'd just take the guys down to the rec room and

beat them repeatedly at chess

and then talk to them for hours about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle

or the underlying social metaphors in the Aliens movies.

Buy stock in some hand cream companies

because there is about to be a major shortage.

And I'm not just talking about straight porn. Oh no.

There should be fuck films for my nerd brethren

of all sexual orientations.

Gay nerd porn flicks with titles like "Dungeons and Drag-queens."

This idea is a fucking gold mine.

I am gonna make millions,

because this country is full of database programmers

and electronics engineers

and they aren't getting the loving they so desperately need.

And you can help . . .

If you're an intelligent woman is interested in breaking into the adult film industry,

and if you can tell me the name of Luke Skywalker's home planet,

then you are hired.

It doesn't matter if you think you're overweight or unattractive.

It doesn't matter if you don't think you're beautiful.

You are beautiful. . .

And I will make you a star
No.10931 Anonymous
>>10930
Obviously awful in at least six different ways at once, but I am most amused by the implication that the porn industry is insufficiently responsive to male sexual desire. The industry that will do untold degrading and awful things to women for the purpose of satisfying male lust peversely stops short of putting nerdy girls in their films in spite of overwhelming market pressure because.... idk, the patriarchy?
No.10932 Anonymous
>>10930
This is almost charmingly quaint. For all its tanker full of cringe, at least the Aella-type "nerd lovers" liked women, now we're in Generation Groyper where the kayfabe has been dropped and there's only violent hate left against the lesser sex.