Tina Celona
Two Poems
Issues of Genius
She is competing in a race in which one runs across water in flippers, and sidestrokes
with someone else holding on. She is the slowest. Afterwards one tries to buy supper but
can only afford U-need-a Biscuits.She is reading the Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas and learning about genius.
Every morning she gets up to see her husband off, then goes back to bed. She wakes up
around lunchtime and eats. Then goes back to bed until dinner. Then goes back to bed.Her friend writes to tell her that Nietszche said genius is a fiction forged by those who
put it on a pedestal so they don’t have to measure themselves with it, and that she (her
friend) has decided she does not believe in genius, nor is interested in the question of
genius, that she has decided this recently, if not life would be unlivable.Gertrude Stein has a thing for genius. She has met three geniuses in her lifetime: Alfred
Whitehead, Pablo Picasso, and herself. That is pretty few!
Aphthous Ulcer
I have an aphthous ulcer
On my throat. It is the size of a grape,
But flat.I have an aphthous ulcer
The color and pattern of my favorite socks.
Smoke scars my throat.I can no longer finish
My aphthous ulcer pie.
It sings in a mysterious voice.I rejected the aphthous ulcer
And with glacial scorn
Relaxed my frown.