New poem: "Just a Penis with a Thesaurus"

 

Just A Penis with a Thesaurus

 

DFW, Boy Wonder and brilliant writer

in his own right, called John Hoyer Updike

“just a penis with a thesaurus,” which,

in that ironic way of every small writer,

caught the great author’s genius for ferreting

out the deepest meaning of the mundane human

experience— “The way! The way!” Thomas

Wolfe described it in “You Can’t Go Home

Again”—through the creative art of writing

fiction, like Updike’s scandalous novel

Couples that broke the sexual barrier of fiction

and got his face on the cover of Time (the

first time), and DFW went out and hanged

himself on the back porch of his house

in Claremont, California.

 

Composed in Georgian Bay, Ontario

Saturday, April 13, 2024