The Epileptic Acupuncturist (by Jeramy Dodds)

The Epileptic Acupuncturist (by Jeramy Dodds)

Original Text
Jeramy Dodds, Crabwise to the Hounds (Toronto: Coach House Books, 2008). This poem is reproduced on the Griffin Prize Web Site (from the winning volume on the 2009 Canadian Shortlist).
1People who get their rocks off
2in glass houses are the same people
3who’d bend you over a rain barrel
4just to give you the wet T-shirts
5off their backs. You can’t shoot
6your mouth off if you’re out of earshot.
7Let bylaws be bygones, don’t mind
8your own business into the ground,
9all the glitters is not cold to the touch.
10You’re only human once. If you’ve taken
11the American way down a one-way street,
12you’ve got to wipe your nose with the heart
13on your sleeve. Don’t knock yourself up over it,
14baby. When they kicked dirt in your eye
15they didn’t think they’d be losing ground.
16If your household name’s ruined by word
17of mouth, take the gift horse to town for a night
18it won’t soon forget. Colonel Sanders didn’t lick
19his fingers to the bone just so you could go it alone.
20If you get what I’m getting at, raise your red hand.
21You’ve got to kiss a lot of ass to get a little behind
22in this business. Playing your silver spoons
23with a bedpan band is like going for broke
24at a church bazaar, more need than bother, more
25clutch than grasp. You’ve got to be half in the bag
26all the way to the bank. The mind is a terrible thing
27to keep chaste. If you can’t be drawn to my quarters,
28do I part the sea and split? I treat my objects like women,
29but I’m as Oedipal as you are Eve. True, I’d drop
30a latch-key kid off at an open-cast mine,
31but you’re nothing to shake champagne at.
32I think you’ll agree with me here, the lake’s
33so clear you can see yourself to the door.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2011