Friday, April 25, 2008

sex in “Boundaries” by D.L. Emblen

“I saw the new lands / through the opening between those legs.”

Need I say more?

There’s also a transgender aspect, you know. Antlers are a sex-linked characteristic. Male deer are the ones with antlers. The “opening between [human] legs” needn’t be vaginal, of course. Human legs aren’t fused, besides which there’s the anal opening.

Iowa. Starts with that big I so maybe it’s a stand-in for the ego. Has a very nice visual rhyme with “I know”. I know Iowa. Remove the consonants from “I know that Iowa” and you get “I ow a Iowa”. No wonder they get first shot at the president.

“very square”? The poem snatches back the human aspects of the legs. “mahogany” could be referring to the color rather than the substance, but after “very square” you’re not thinking mahogany hottie, are you?

Do cars have gunnels? A gunnel is the “rail around the edge of a boat”. The poet is being poetic we know. He just means “filled to the brim” … although one suspects packages were tied to the roof, a vision which overspills the metaphor. Don’t pay too much attention.

If you take a spindly little stand on an issue, I suppose your resistance is not difficult to overwhelm. Especially if it’s tied upside down, eh?

Is the top of the telephone stand round? Then it could be wheel-like and help transport us to the steering wheel the poet was leaning over, the one that guided his turns across the continent to the great West. Fuck Iowa. California is the place you wanna be. Go West! Life is peaceful there! Go West! In the open air!

Back to antlers and sex a mo’, that being tied to the bonnet does double duty, don’t it? Hunter? Seducer?

If a boat is loaded to the gunnels, isn’t it in danger of foundering?

In mythology the sky is often male. Mother Earth’s opposite.

What did I miss?

No comments: