REESE THOMPSON

THE PROBLEM OF POETRY

Don’t tell me this is going to
be about humming-birds again.
Or cicadas.
Nothing that has to do
with hedgerows, please,
kitchen appliance epiphanies
or botany.

Am I the only one sick
of the same
air brushed version
of the poet’s preoccupation
with beachside paraphernalia?
What do I care, having
just alienated a good quantity
of them, if I admit to never
mooning over seashells,
the everyday maladies
of people who need justice
less than others.
 

ELECTRA: THE ‘E’ TRUE HOLLYWOOD STORY

1. the sell

I woke with a blood-stain on the bed sheet and called it, Daddy,
and addressed him then, Take me like a blessing before war.
My bride’s bed is a frothy embroidery of sparks, a blade’s flail
on a stone is my honeymoon. I am Hate’s whore and he raped me.

Love between us is a girl willing. She waits the monthly blood gift
that’ll sate a ghost’s blood lust for a hundred cut throats. Mother?
Look, I’m like a nun, see? A martyr all unwashed from years of periods.

See my crown? Corn-husks wound in a halo-shape.
See my veil? A widow’s panty looped to a noose.

Here is my scepter, a shovel
Call me a princess and I’ll bake you

a cake of carcasses. Be my king and I’ll show you my coinage.
 

2. publicity

Death is the knot my crying can’t untie.
Hate is the hand knotted around my throat
that makes my weeping choke on the word, Father.

My cunt is a cradle, I told Barbara Walters. I laughed
when she asked about my bastards. And how I could
still wear a crown, when I compared myself to Lady Di.

They have DNA evidence against me and Orestes.
My sister, no doubt, will testify against us. They
offered me ratings to mud wrestle her on TV.

I’d like for the photographers to stop following me.
I’d like for the papers to stop saying I’m a dyke.
 

3. fame

It was I who started the rumor that someone
else wrote my memoir and not me. Some said

the sensation didn’t ring true, that my life was
fictionalized for a persona resembling no one

anyone knew. I was booed by the PTA, they
burned a cross on my front lawn. Elton John

sent me condolescenses after Joan Rivers
dissed my outfit. It was I who started the rumor

that my father had raped me. My publicist was
impressed by how well I hide my culpability

behind chastity; Americans value their virgins.
So I left Greece and bought a house in LA.

How could I have known that Yoga would save me?
 

4. celebrity boxing

I can hardly go to the supermarket without flash-bulbs
blinking, shocking time into yielding. A stain plate lit

against a memory. Sometimes he comes back to me,

while I’m traveling incognito to attend every hole in
the wall performance adapted from my memoir. I watch

an actress mimic me lamenting, back before I knew
what it was like to worry about my weight, or my career

and the girl on stage playing me is more me than I am.

Next semester I’ll teach a course at the New School
on the various approaches to playing me.
 

Reese Thompson is a poet, novelist and playwright. His work has appeared in Paris/Atlantic, Third Coast, Yefief, No Exit, The Beloit Poetry Journal and others. He's the winner of Lyric Recovery's first Prize in Prague and a finalist in their international competition. His work has been performed at The Nuyorican Poet's Cafe, The SoHo Art's Festival, and Carnegie Hall. He's co-founder of the theatre company, Vex Productions. He's also one of the original Rogue Scholars. Currently, he divides his time between New York and Spain.