NOTES on #69

"three coats of red watercolors"


This poem tries to illustrate what a small world our heads can be.  The main heart of it, "Chain Male," functions through a kind of stream of consciousness that makes connections with words until it returns back to the beginning.  Since this is the first muppoem I ever wrote, the concept is essentially the concept behind the entire series.



& Even though it is the first I wrote, it is the 69th in the series. '69 was the year of revolution, yet people find 69 to be a funny number.  My father was born on a 6 and my mother was born on a 9.  That's how I have always remember their birthdays.  A friend once told me that I would always see a 6 and he would always see a 9.  The old Muppet Mansion was on E 69th St. 



& Coca-Cola is the most recognizable logo worldwide.  Spike Milligan's episode of The Muppet Show is dedicated to all the different countries of the world!



& This episode features, "America," which is from West Side Story.  In the movie, Coca-Cola is actually advertised in a scene with Anton, who wants peace and love, but ends up in the throes of war.




& Spike Milligan starred in the show Q8 which included six series.  His initials are S.M.  So are Stanley Milgram's.  Stanley Milgram conducted the small-world experiment in 1967 which brought to light the Six Degrees of Separation Phenomenon, which is one of the main themes of the entire six books.


& Spike Milligan and King Arthur both resided in 'The British Isles.'  Whether Spike was from Northern Ireland or The Republic of Ireland I'm not so sure.  Nor am I sure where Arthur was born, or if he was ever born, literally speaking.




& Spike Milligan suffered from Bipolar Disorder, just as I do. It is a cyclical illness. OOOOOOklahoma!




. . . MORSE CODE RADIO TRANSMISSION AFTER SHOCK  . . .


. . . of WHITE'S LIE THE ONCE & FUTURE KING  . . .


. . . & THE IRISH INDIAN, SPIKE MILLIGAN . . .

 

. . . What would you rather have: a boring truth, or an exciting lie ? . . .

 

. . . People are easily dazzled by Round Tables and feats of arms . . .

 

 . . . All men are cremated equal . . .

 

. . .You will find, that when the kings are bullies who believe in force,

the people are bullies too . . .

 

                                                                                       . . . How long was I in the army ?


Five foot eleven . . .

 

. . . Now his exhausted brain slipped into its accustomed circles:  the withered paths, like those of the donkey in the treadmill, round which he had plodded many thousand times in vain . . .

 

. . . All I ask is the chance to prove that money can’t make me happy . . .

 

. . . This was the second circle --- it was like the Inferno .  How did the fact of war begin in general ?  For any one war seemed so rooted in its antecedents . . .

 

 . . . My father had a profound influence on me .


He was a lunatic . . .

 

. . . Sisters, mothers, grandmothers:  everything was rooted in the past!  Actions of any sort in one generation might have incalculable consequences in another, so that merely to sneeze was a pebble thrown into a pond, whose circles might lap the furthest shores .  It seemed as if the only hope was not to act at all, to draw no swords for anything, to hold oneself still, like a pebble not thrown .  But that would be hateful . . .

 

. . . You can fool some of the people all of the time,

and all the people some of the time,

which is just long enough to be president of the United States . . .

 

. . . The blessing of forgetfulness:  that was the first essential.  If everything one did, or which one's fathers had done, was an endless sequence of Doings doomed to break forth bloodily, then the past must be obliterated and a new start made.  Man must be ready to say :  Yes, since Cain there has been injustice, but we can only set the misery right if we accept a status quo .  Lands have been robbed, men slain, nations humiliated .  Let us now start fresh without remembrance, rather than live forward and backward at the same time .  We cannot build the future by avenging the past .  Let us sit down, as brothers, and accept the Peace of God .

 

. . . & God said, “Let there be light !”

& there was light,


                            but the Electricity Board said he would have to wait until Thursday to have it connected  
. . .







HAVE A READ
Why Don't Ya?

Here is LINK to the poem again:

































 here is a performance piece 
of the first coat back in a braver day 
trying to explain myself...


WARNING
it's legit 
not good