Deaborah Meadows

 

 

Gargant

 

after Rabelais

 

 

Calls to be more faire

            hold what they knew

            oil of sense & surl

 

Marrow of doctrine

            attains

            picto-flourish

phantasmagorical

                                    symbol

                                       of

                                    anatomy

                                       of

                                    conscience

 

pious gullet

good valve

                        rend meaning Selves

                        serious things

                        to say about diligence

                        accoutered

 

as incredible goats, their lives,

                        seen in shadowed

                        pantheist

                                    Simples.

                        *

 

 

 


 

 

 

                        1

 

The former time --

                        inelectable as certain pants

                        an Emperor,

born of desires

            masked in authored

books was struck against

            in sluices

unfrozen from tombs made

            by nocturnal pamphlets

some had nibbled, so

            complicated a reading.

 

                        *

 

 

 

                        2

 

"Anti-onumated ...

                        conc-etter ..."

is almost said

            some of his prelators

look on arms and eaters

            gaping through gaps

holo-grams of Cy-sores

            unless

 

Cleare, short, flat ideas

            cath-olving such a jeer-shed

no more catching fallow guys

            unlesse

 

working for Hawthorne Brews,

            burne one sign to save

minc-aves from their riches

            that dic-lost, we com-kers

sweat close for

            "Hell or hell-aster"

the swung bell could while.

 

                        *

 

 

                        3

 

Three gargantuan months late

            a notable jester, "I" was then intent

 

bastard

custard

mustard

muster the Green

            of Lombardy Links,

a skin-stouffed width

that Jupiter made a bit later.

 

Nay, hunger queargues

salacious as ancien-increase.

            Enquirer on the ladle

of ballast & lading,

            labor without pari-danger

 

can finde

their husbande

                        hoisted in liber-humous;

sachems kept the paupican state

            very weened

never an heir so meat,

            macrobial, stop-not

                        concrease.

 

                        *

 


 

 

                        4

 

How tripe a yeare,

            fruit of beeves

men lickt

            noche-kers

a year and fourteen.

 

Debilitated but tall,

            Boud-rillos stiff

as casing for three bushels

            standing, O.

 

                        *

 


 

 

                        5

 

Mon mot, I wet

            by scancioned flablets

the charity of flagons' ting, glaze

with water a thirst, not a charicere,

 

            hither a word-moth fly:

I amongst it, I kills it, I have rights.

 

When new and eager with normal

            exhalations called between boyles

and vice, be lusti-fruct

            Aime, a bouquet of soma-drink

to my turne like another corner

            of accentual lash appealing to gentle

& worried lustiness.  Drifters made

            of dough-ards, ink the alkali

fiends, good as decoction

            of beasti-tar upon one ear

heighs mellif-land tones annulling.

 

                        *

 

 

 

                        6

 

Organs were plebeggarelles

            off the grate,

unwell but suspecting

            trouble.  Spirits'

ell saying grievous vines.

 

Goat's blood from mum-meane

            -tire futures:  I will be ...

            I shall be ..., then suddenly,

barroom tripes, from below

            her fundament (enmity

in the terrean) Saint Being

            issued forth

                        not as other stuffe

both cleave to & cleave apart

            could not

Hubri-cock our idle spirits,

            it is at his hark

a woman-hence--

            which swindles more?

 

                        *

 

 

 

                        7

 

Gout hast soup and supple

                        mean

 

while minions of luck and wealth

                        draw out

democratized rigor

            studied as nine inventions,

scandalized dignity,

            copious pain--

a sudden kind of withdrawal

            gait up for plastered flight.

 

                        *

 

 

 

                        8

 

Breeches & arms ordained--

            ordinary as champs

of the gutter were those blew

            apparels.  Damask

 

& diamond broidered cod piece

            corny as cornucopias.   Decked

 

with gall, gallant as enamel

            the neck respective

and wood reaped for endurance

            two elated dreads

            counter, rather contradict

half-rejoycing others,

            set with market's Emerald--

a spire's height to crash

            at nine hundred.

 

                        *

 

 

 

                        9

 

Rein, rien,

                        well

 

inducements toward a white sign

            meaning

                        clarations of tyrants

                        & interpretators

 

presumptions aside, they demonstrate

            Reason

their scooter-horses

            pleased according to (Acre)

he hath trust to tier

            who's absurd

            should be fined.

 

Fast to signifiers

            depicted with skill

            on propertied forts

by sight, Call them.

            Shook forth large metalments

 

                        in pronounced time.

 

                        *

 

 

 

                        10

 

Evil & pain.      White

 

            Virtue of Philosophy

constituted by contrary reason

            burning

as if one were First

in position rather than interpretation.

 

Uncontrollable people, apostles

drawn to important light & fortune

 

lost each head, carols tease

            Heaven, find a decree shed

for triumphant need & sever a figure

            pledged to ovations, white nickels,

paltry milk

                                    rode analogously

forth dispensing vital joy

            attachments sent to extremities,

                        deprived of Sophocles' strikes.





Note:  Many syllables, words, entire phrases have been derived from the Gargantua section (first published in 1534) of the volume, Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais, translated by two late 17th century persons, Sir Thomas Urquhart and Pierre Le Motteux, (Everyman’s Library, 1994) who freely added to “Rabelais’s virtuoso word lists; expletives, far from being deleted are multiplied,”  whose “rendering of the first three books is half as long again as the original,” and, as political position-holders, “both translators adapt Rabelais’s satire of certain abuses in the Church to [their own] demands of a forthright anti-Catholic sensibility” according to the volume’s “Introduction” by Terrence Cave.

 




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