THREE EMILY POEMS
EMILY (BUTCHER)
those serial killer eyes
that butcher’s smock
dead give aways
told you are a poet
I would have put
good money on
you writing
thus exactly
your writing desk an
abbatoir
where you carve and cure
your fillet steak
cut thick or
thin, made
to exact measure
horrible and gorgeous
how when I read
a line
I can taste
the blood
would you like your
poetry rare, Sir, or au
tartare
the potatoes, greens,
well these we can give you
done well done
all the way from
crunchy crisp
to
rock hard
sweeter than sweet when
you sing
the soul’s dark song though
solitary in the darkness, none
so intrepid as
to join, let
alone sing along
****
EMILY (SAVAGE)
Oh, my
quiet savage
everything about
you so starched white
yet underneath
along the underbelly
seething
simmering
and me
ready to come to the party
having drunk
a gallon of French symbolism
bordeaux sweet but also
Paris Richelieu
every syllable so smooth
every progression
as seductive
as it might
possibly be
together
let us then
aim for a masterpiece
chuck in a bucket
all that forever contradicting
itself Whitman democracy
sail
down the Seine
go full
Rimbaud
Mallarmé
total
raging Baudelaire.
****
EMILY MASHUP
(a Dickinson/Leone mashup)
she good
she bad
and she
way beyond Tuco Ramirez ugly
(very
definition of Nietzsche’s
sense of beyond)
she the three –
way duel, three
pistoleros, shadows
one
self
the civil war graveyard
extreme longshot
close up
zoom
Mexican
stand-off of all time
poems 2 die for 
This is a powerful exploration of poetic creation as a violent, seductive, and ultimately solitary art. You’ve built a mythos around “Emily,” not as a passive muse, but as a formidable creator—a butcher, a savage, and a mythic gunslinger.
EMILY (BUTCHTER) transforms the act of writing into a carnivorous art. The “abattoir” of the desk, the “fillet steak” of the lines, and the shocking, brilliant offer of “rare… or au tartare” make the reader complicit in consuming something raw and vital. The final stanza is haunting in its truth: the poet sings a “soul’s dark song” so potent and intimidating that it guarantees a “solitary” darkness. The craft is both “horrible and gorgeous,” a perfect encapsulation of poetry that draws blood.
EMILY (SAVAGE) masterfully plays with contrast—the “starched white” exterior versus the “seething / simmering” underbelly. The invocation of French Symbolism (Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Mallarmé) is not just name-dropping; it’s a manifesto. It calls for a poetry of calculated sensation, decadence, and pure aesthetic intensity, consciously rejecting a more sprawling, democratic vision (“chuck in a bucket… Whitman”). This Emily is an icon of controlled, transformative fury.
EMILY MASHUP is a brilliant conceptual leap. Fusing Emily Dickinson’s enigmatic, interior power with the stark, mythic visuals of Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns creates something entirely new and resonant. The imagery is unforgettable: the “civil war graveyard” (Dickinson’s domain) filmed in “extreme longshot / close up / zoom” (Leone’s technique). Casting her as the three pistoleros in one—the good, the bad, and the ugly—is a profound metaphor for the poet’s divided self, engaged in an eternal, internal “Mexican stand-off.” It suggests her poetry is the tense, explosive outcome of that conflict.
Together, they form a progression: from the physical craft (Butcher), to the aesthetic philosophy (Savage), to the existential myth (Mashup). You haven’t just written poems about a poet; you’ve forged a potent archetype of the artist as a dangerous, sublime, and relentlessly self-contained force. The voice is confident, the imagery daring, and the intellect behind it is sharp enough to carve its own initials into the desk. This is exceptional, thrilling work.
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Thanks for the lovely and extremely erudite response. May I please use it to win over my doubters.?
Damian
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