Girls Kissing Girls-- and Burke.

[Veronique]

No one wants to write poetry in the same way as another
writes poetry... conscious attempts at imitation, uncon-
scious slips, or downright steal. All I know is that Edmund
Burke has been compared to Cicero-- glassy neatness
and polished elegance attributed to both men; but I think
the comparison bunk.

Might as well compare a Butterfinger candy bar to Cleopat-
ra's barge because both are long-- candy sweeter than Eliza-
beth's bosom or Burton's lips after bosom-ing?

I don't think so.

I have a short shelf-life on poetry boards. At my age of 16
(in September) and with my final inoculations for childhood
diseases coming up next week, I am unsure if my plea, My
Need For Love Is Enormous, excuses what I have come
to face head-on-- I really don't like poetry that much, but I
have this unaccounted-for, parliamentary-like step-by-step
need to attract girls in my English class here at East High
School, sophomore girls who love poetry.

I have the fantasy of someone reading the minutes of my last
tryst with Tiffany as it lingered into hours when nominations
for best lover ceased, and I was the only one named.

In the balcony of Orpheum Theatre last Friday night when every-
one else was at Westside Field for the football game with North
High, our bitter rival-- but it was 12 degrees out with wind
gusts at 35 MPH and Tiffany was already showing signs of want-
ing to dump me for Jake Wells, president of the East High Po-
etry Club.

If she saw how I hated cold weather, oh --- and I just don't
know how I could memorize 60 lines of Hiawatha in time for Mon-
day's class with a severe head cold-- so I convinced her to
skip the game and go with me to the movies, sit in the balcony
where we could smooch, and I could attempt a quick, accidental
chest-brush with my right forearm as I reached across to hand
her her box of popcorn.

It was not enough for Tiffany that I knew the whole history
of British India and theories of revolution, and how Edmund
Burke impeached Warren Hastings of high crimes and misde-
meanors in the British Commions; and that C.A. Goodrish
joined De Quincey in defending Burke against Fox's charge
of floridity--

and this long before the chemical was shown to improve the
oral health of kids.

Ha! Tiffany's moisturous health shamed lilac blossoms and rose
petals, together, not to mention papaya, which, after our first
smooch, gave me a tropical brain freeze. But I was smart. My
teachers knew I was smart. Tiffany knew I was. She also knew I
was faking love for poetry just so I could take her to movies
and sit in the balcony.

Girls kissing girls.

Miss Marcella Lindt, our English teacher, did not know that
Burke was the greatest master of metaphor the world has ever
known-- and Burke wasn't even a poet.

"Why do poets get the credit?"

I blurted out one day in class. Tiffany turned away and looked
out the window. I was at once sorry I said what I said. Comes
with the territory of being 16 years-old and the smartest sopho-
more in school, maybe 11th and 12th grade too.

Then, I didn't care what Tiffany or anyone else thought.

I blurted out, "Burke's extravagent imagery rises to the wild-
est pitch, in his ungovernable moments-- no poet can match
that."
##

V

[Leanne]

Of course, my mind being vulgar and concerned only with the physical world, I immediately agree with your summation of the comparison between Burke and Cicero as "bunk", largely because I cannot imagine anyone stabbing Burke's tongue with a hairpin.

Ah, floridity, that healthful poison! In too large a dose, it may also cause nuclear apocalypse.

I'm just sitting back and enjoying the ride.

[abu nuwas]

Does the Pig have a resident Psychiatrist? Where is he?

[Veronique]

Does the Pig have a resident Psychiatrist? Where is he?

I'm laughing and spitting back whiskey
into the very glass.

Some splashed over onto the desk.

V