United States, (b. 1953)
Francis Ford Coppola and Anthropologist Interpreter Teaching Gartewienna Tribesmen to Sing “Light My Fire,” Philippine Jungle, 1978
- It’s done phonetically, of course, at great
- Expense. Dr. Singh, the bull-horned anthropologist,
- Struts with Francis on the peopled set, insists
- On short hours for the warriors, who must hunt
- Wild pig tomorrow, an annual ritual
- That should not be disturbed.
- But integrity
- Matters less to him than his large consulting fee.
- Back in Manila, he will buy a Mercedes SL
- And forget about the Leader’s new doubleknits,
- Leader’s Number-Three-Wife
- snorting coke with Dennis Hopper,
- Brando signing glossies for the witch doctor
- To grind into aphrodisiacs.
- CAW-MAWN BAY-BE LIGHT
- MY FOY-OR they chant.
- “What mean Apocalypse Now?” asks the Leader.
- Dr. Singh: “Mean: everybody-die-together-here.”
© David Wojahn. Mystery train. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press (1992).
About the Poet:
David Wojahn United States, (b. 1953), is a poet, educator. He teaches poetry in the Department of English at Virginia Commonwealth University, and in the low residency MFA in Writing program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. He has been the director of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Creative Writing Program.
Wojahn has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Illinois Arts Council, and the Indiana Arts Commission. [DES-01/22]