Harold Rhenisch Kazoo: The Psalm at the End of the Song

Reference West, November 1998. ISBN: 1-894010-26-4  5.5 x 8.5 20 pp  $10 regular $20 for one of 10 hand-sewn copies.

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 Why should novelists have all the fun? Here are psalms written to God in language meant to be played on a Kazoo. Meet Wallace Stevens as a Used Car Salesman. Meet God in his Antique Store. Meet Pound serving his guests tea out of tuna tins, behind the piano. God was a vaudeville artist for a while. In his humiliation, Pound went silent. God, as always, had the last laugh.

Samples

Black Coffee Rag
   A Game of Poker
   The Old Dispensation
    
 

Black Coffee Rag
             
 
 
I like my coffee strong,
full of sludge.
 
Remember that time I found you,
a silence in the house,
 
drinking it cold out of the cups?
 
Thick. Get to chew those last bits.
Mmmmm. Read the newspaper,
 
have the light sere in through the window
and across the pages. Mmmm &emdash; mm.
 
We used to start fires like that:
magnifying glass,
bit of punky wood, easy;
 
at Recess, crouched
behind the backstop.
 
That's the way I like to think of you,
running your fingers over the words,
one at a time,
sounding each word out slowly with your lips,
frowning:
 
The High Cost of Low Taxes in High-Value Land in Japan.
Then running to your dictionary:
 
Light/English, English/Light. Of course
they're not there. None
of the words are there. Ever.Only trees and stuff, schist, shale, shepherd's purse,
Daphnium, Black Haw.
 
Hence the coffee, see. For its fire.
You can only give that to us,
 
that bond, not the words themselves,
not the trees: a whole bunch of stuff, really.
 
All of it tenuous. Scrap.
 
I mean, if you want to meet anyone in this town,
go to the dump. Wait.
 
They'll be there.
             
 
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            A Game of Poker
             
 
Poetry.
 
Now who would have imagined that?
 
Not I, says the socio-realist novelist,
not I says the cat.
 
Rat too.
 
Everybody chiming in. An old story.
 
Kind of an embarrassment, really.
But what can you replace it with?
 
I know! Death!
Sure, deal out a deck of cards.
He's the guy on the back.
Every single one.
 
Dealer takes two, says the socio-realist novelist.
I fold, says the cat.
 
Death? whispers the rat.
 
sssssssssss!
             
 
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            The Old Dispensation
             
 
 
OK, I've never had the cash
to buy a ticket there, to your place,
 
where the wind smells of sage and olives
and rock, and the night smells like a breath.
 
Onions. Goat cheese. Right, mostly the onions.
I like to think you have a shop there,
 
right on the main drag, full
of all kinds of old junk.
 
Kind of a musty smell
once you get inside.
 
Know what I mean? Where people
who're going somewhere in a hurry
 
can stop and finger all that old stuff,
and pick up those rusty tools
 
and ask you what's this for?
and you'll say, "I don't know either,
 
but it sure is well made, eh" &emdash; clever.
They can buy some of that old dust, too,
 
hand-made Doukhobor chairs, rough things,
if they've got the cash, or some china.
 
Nippon. Occupied Japan. Old spoons
with a china picture of the Queen on the handle. 
 
Anything. Anything at all, just so they can remember
what it was like when they were young.
 
History doesn't just come from books.
I like to think of you like that.
 
Expansive. Merciful. Eating an orange
over the stove in the back. 
Juice dribbling down. Looking up.
             
 
Choose another sample

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