Keye Luke on Mars
It was me
helped Keye Luke
map Dawes Continent
in 1975.
We were in the northern hemisphere.
Keye Luke told the worst jokes.
It was us who charted the afternoon's
progress among the psychotropics.
I remember the sand ate at our eyes.
The last day
I told him,
"There can't be any theories left,"
"Match you for the tab,"
He joked.
I turned the page
for that day's chart
and it read
"Next five exits
Lincoln shrines".
Beginning of the series of poems that marked the second half of the 1970s for me. Keye Luke was the asian-american actor who played Lee Chan in the the Warner Oland/Sidney Toler Charlie Chan movies. The conceit of these poems is that Lee Chan and myself are somehow in a 1940s Hollywood movie, where we are exploring Mars, as if it were a desert sand planet. The metaphor, not to get too obvious, comes from David Bowie's song, Life on Mars, where daily life is understood to be as alien as life on another planet. The idea that poetry is cartographic in nature has been with me fairly constantly since my teen years. I like the idea that metaphors are functionally equivalent to the symbological representations of reality that appear on maps. There are quite a number of these poems. Read in order, or in the group, they can amount to a fairly good look at my emotional being in those years, so long ago now. Keye Luke died a few years ago (1991).
helped Keye Luke
map Dawes Continent
in 1975.
We were in the northern hemisphere.
Keye Luke told the worst jokes.
It was us who charted the afternoon's
progress among the psychotropics.
I remember the sand ate at our eyes.
The last day
I told him,
"There can't be any theories left,"
"Match you for the tab,"
He joked.
I turned the page
for that day's chart
and it read
"Next five exits
Lincoln shrines".
Beginning of the series of poems that marked the second half of the 1970s for me. Keye Luke was the asian-american actor who played Lee Chan in the the Warner Oland/Sidney Toler Charlie Chan movies. The conceit of these poems is that Lee Chan and myself are somehow in a 1940s Hollywood movie, where we are exploring Mars, as if it were a desert sand planet. The metaphor, not to get too obvious, comes from David Bowie's song, Life on Mars, where daily life is understood to be as alien as life on another planet. The idea that poetry is cartographic in nature has been with me fairly constantly since my teen years. I like the idea that metaphors are functionally equivalent to the symbological representations of reality that appear on maps. There are quite a number of these poems. Read in order, or in the group, they can amount to a fairly good look at my emotional being in those years, so long ago now. Keye Luke died a few years ago (1991).
Labels: Keye Luke
posted by As Bjorn at 4:28 PM
2 Comments:
Why, why must I read the poem that explains everything else last? I figured out the Mars thing way back, so I'm glad I guessed correctly. Dude, I love geography in writing. Seriously, I think it's become a miniature obsession of mine, especially since moving to Chicago where place/neighborhood is such a definition of everything else. Thinking of going through life as if you're charting Mars is fucking badass. Seriously, dad, you're a little cooler now. Why Keye Luke? Seems like a random choice for a traveling partner. Personally, I could only take so many puns about the surface of the red planet before kicking him off a sand dune, but I've got a low pain tolerance.
"When the devil came, he was not red.
He was chrome and he said:
You must come with me,
So I went
Where everything was clean."
*snaps her fingers*
Boy that's good, the chrome demon and all. Poor bastard devil, thinking he's got a role in this reality, when all that is really going on is him getting over his ownself.
Be that as it may, I think I mentioned in my blog these poems needed to be read in order. Ah well. Why Keye Luke? Because he was always trying to help his pop in those movies, but he usually was just off a little bit in his theory of the crime and then Charlie would fix it. I related to Lee Chan, but I love the name Keye Luke with so many things hidden in it. IN any case it was that goofiness that prompted me to go with the Yellow Man of Love (a randy newman reference, not that racist in those days, more so now). Yes, I do love maps.
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