LETTER TO A WOUND

"...astonishing twaddle plucked

from a peculiarly deluded universe...

...pettish, self-destructive milksop..."

—Richard Davenport-Hines, “Formica-

and-Vinyl?” Times Literary Supplement

10/19/2012

________________________

There’s this fissure taking place—

Just as painful as Miss Auden’s

Rude rectal fissure in her memoir

“Letter to a Wound,” my dears

These fissures aren’t fictional—

They’re more like Miss Capote’s

Nonfiction Novel “In Cold Blood”

Except perhaps even more fissiony

I first noticed it with a bitchy—

Times Literary Supplement review

Of Miss Halperin’s “How To Be Gay”

By one of Britain’s most astute critics

Miss Davenport-Hines the imminent—

Literary critic and biographer of the

Ultimate British Queen W. H. Auden

The suffering author of “The Wound”

Miss Halperin’s “How To Be Gay”—

Reminds me of “Madwoman in the Attic"

A major Feminist breakthrough in the

Art and Craft of Miss Havisham Lit

A rather clever coy gay coup d’état—

Seems to likewise be taking place now

Amongst the Queer Theory Intelligentsia

Dishing their way up Dreary Deary Lane

Ah yes, "Dreary Deary" Lane—

Well, it's fairly easy to get that way

As one becomes an aging old queen

Like that forthcoming British sitcom

With those two old queens Derek Jacobi—

& Ian McKellen who become Vicious Old Queens

While I prefer that campy Tired Old Movie Queen

But does it really make any difference?

As long as one can still be campy about it—

The facelifts, the rectal fissures, the usual moans

And groans of being Mildred Pierce or even better

The ultimate Diva Bette “What a Dump!” Davis?

I dunno, really my dears, but I seem to sense—

The Dreary Deary Mildred Pierce routine is passe

And louche Linda "Fallen Angel" Darnell is de reguer 

With her "So what?" and/or "Who cares?" routine

Miss Halperin’s shift to American Diva camp—

Away from Miss Auden’s sad “Letter to a Wound”

Is like the story of my life schlepping & falling from

Madwoman in the Attic to Fallen Angel in the gutter