Pretty Yokel collects the Yokel Songs written between 2017 and the present End Times and marked lime-green for autoeroticism and gender-ambivalence. The Yokel feels all their seven Chakras spinning both ways.
TRIGGER WARNING:
What does a yokel do all day besides ogle their own bare feet?
Villanelle: Well, Well, Well
Sitting with my feet in the sun—
back porch preening on my canvas deck chair.
That settles it, I’m the feet poet!
I’m the feet poet, and I know it.
The sunshine warms my tootsies bare.
Got rows to hoe and I’m gonna hoe it!
Everyone knows I’m the feet poet,
and allows I own a pretty pair.
Excuse me, don’t mind if I show it!
But will the Trump regime allow it,
these toesie rows on which I stare?
Fuck you, Trump, I’m the feet poet!
Time’s comin’ when I’ll hafta DO it—
put my toes on the thoroughfare,
feet in the street, and battle for it!
Hiya, Pinkie! Wanna sew it?
They called me Easy Money there.
Got rows to hoe and I’m gonna hoe it!
Now watch my drag! I’m the feet poet!
Villanelle: Bupkis mit Kuduchas
I’m awake and I'm feelin’ all lively and horny!
I look at my phone, turn the radio on.
Can’t make up my mind to do nothin’
this morning!
Some mornings I wake up all sad and forlorny.
Those mornings I might think the world is
a con.
But today I am jis feelin’ lively and horny!
I once had a love but our love died aborny—
a love that I never could travel beyond—
so I just can’t decide to do nothin’
this morning.
Your hijinks are corny, not to say porny!
the cool people say when I’ve got my drag on
and I’m feelin’ especially lively and horny.
I swept all the floors, then I left without warny.
Don’t save a kiss for me, Sweetheart,
I’m gone!
I can’t just decide to do nothin’
this morning!
If I we jis' had a boat, we could ride
on our pony,
and our bo-ut would carry us hither and yon.
I feel inexhaustibly lively and horny,
but I can't set my mind to bald bupkis
this morning!
Red Tassel
Got my red tassel on.
Your cue—
You rascal!
Got my blinds drawn,
open to view.
Got my red tassel on.
Now I’m out on the lawn,
feelin’ the dew—
You rascal!
Got my camera phone!
Guess who’s
got their red tassel on?
Bang your cajón!
I'm weavin’ through!
You rascal!
Feelin’ right at home!
What else is there to do?
Got my red tassel on.
You rascal!
For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
I want to change my feet from white to brown.
I’m an erotic poet, that’s all there is to it!
At ten to six I’ll perform such tricks
without a sound.
I’m planning to perform them in the round.
You’ll be sitting there watching me, and
there won’t be an exit.
I’ll start by changing my feet
from white to brown,
and you’ll be plenty glad you’re sitting down
when you see me stabbed in the forum,
spurting blood.
At ten to six I’ll perform such tricks
without a sound.
And I’m quite sure you won’t be dedicating
a mound
to me, once I’m hurled off the Tarpeian Rock.
But it's
so sweet to feel my white feet toasted brown
as I lie here on this nice Black Sea beach
I’ve found
to dwell on, where Ovid was exiled—
my biscuits
baking into the tricks I’ll perform at ten to six
without a sound!
I’ll be the raunchy Sun King removing
their gown.
If you’re not with me in flesh, you are in spirit
when I change my old goat feet
from white to brown.
At ten to six I’ll perform such tricks
without a sound.
2019
Thin Man at the Spinning Wheel
Should I write another poem
(got my notebook in my left hand)?
So far from ho-em!
My right hand holds a baldpoint pen
(it’s tickling my palm, the little gno-em!).
Yup, I’m ready to stroke out another poem,
cause my right brain is oozing fo-em
and my feet are dreaming of warm sand,
as I draw near my po-em ho-em.
You can say I’m nothing but a Jo-ens
machine (but I don’t dig men).
I yearn to spin a poem
about how it feels to be the roving
wool (not wolf) out on the land—
my prairie ho-em—
fed through love’s orifice onto the spinning
mother of all dreams, like the stellar band.
May I [un]wind another poem,
safe in my forever-ho-em?
Making the Best of a Sunny 48-Degree
Spring Day
ॐ OM
Got my shorts out of the drawer.
I’m proud to be sitting out in the sun.
My feet are bare.
The chipmunks have come out of their lair
(under the back porch?) and are chasing
each other around.
Got my shorts out of the drawer,
but it’s really pretty cold out here.
Got my snap denim shirt on
too, but my feet are bare.
Another thing is, I’m writing in my orange
notebook instead of breathing ÖM—
I’m sitting out in the sun,
my white hair
is long and shaggy, and I feel proud
to be the one
God’s watching—with my feet all bare.
I want to share myself with you,
but I don’t dare,
and, anyway, we’ll both have much more fun
if we just get our shorts out of the drawer.
Our feet are bare.
Satyrs With Monkey Feet
Easy to feel when we’re out rompin’
in the pasture,
in love with each other, in love with ourselves!
No greater blessing than to be
a living creature!
Bleatin’ the Gospel scripture,
footin’ like some trippin’ goats—
natural when we’re out rompin’
in the pasture.
We’re just queerly-purposed goat manure
anyhow, dying by dribs and groats,
but still baaing the joy of being
a living creature.
Don’t we love to feel that cakey mixture
wetting and shittying our heels and toes
when we’re out rompin’ in the pasture?—
Jonesing that brews for us the true elixir
of the marriage of sight, hearing,
touch, and smell—
tasted in the blessing of being
a living creature.
Truly, the earth is our only teacher
with its flirty, never-ending show-and-tell—
felt in our hoof soles when we’re out rompin’
in the pasture.
Eternal gift to be a living creature!
2020
Daffodils
When on my couch I lie, all I can see of me
are my feet.
Happens, I enjoy looking at them.
Soles meet
when I cuddle them softly
together, brushing the hem
of my blue terry cloth bathrobe. Well, I can
see my knees
and shins too. Whom else do I see?—
foregone ancestors, though I’ve
never met them.
My soles will meet
the floor in due time, but for a while
I can lie here
and imagine others who had my slight, fem-
my build. God chose them. Their feet
trod the earth till their days were o’er.
Perhaps they thought that loving themselves
was wrong,
but my soul believes
they glowed like me in the early
morning light. In future times, beloved others
will behold them.
When I lie on my couch, all I can see of me
are my feet.
Sōls meet.
Pretty
To have once been pretty
in the eyes of the beholder.
May I pet my kitty,
even if I’m well past fi’ty?
I can only grow still older.
Will Merlin themselves be pretty
in hundreds of years when they’re practically
a bitty
baby again, crying:
Pet me, I’m a kitty?
And forthwith they take the titty
and start growing upward like
Jack’s beanstalk—
pretty
at last, just past the point of puberty—
before we tire of all the sex talk.
Such a pretty kitty
was I back in the days of serenditty—
smelling of alder catkins, I’m not lying!
Once and future pretty.
I’ll pet my kitty!
Me (Orpheus, the Yokel)
Can these villanelles be exemplary?
The speaker’s a flirty autoeroticist in love with
their own feet.
Well, that’s me.
Who else could I be?
Or can I just not take the heat
of trying to be exemplary?
For someone to want to read
these villanelles, the speaker must be
a complete
character, separate from me.
OK, maybe that helps me see
my way. The old Yokel might be pretty,
but they’re also still me—
so how can these villanelles not be
too smarmy
for poetry fans to want to read?
Well, these salty villanelles can be exemplary
if they’re about the God of Poetry
Themselves, child of Prince and Beyoncé—
a flirty autoeroticist in love with
the world’s feet!
Well, that’s me!
After the Storm (My Erogenous Backyard)
Crow’s rusty caw.
my erogenous backyard.
Not remembering how I slept
through the thunderous storm.
Mirror-water on the cedar porch-step.
Yesterday my black cat
caught and killed a gray vole
in my erogenous backyard.
I buried the vole in a flower bed
under God’s paw—
sky reflected in the cedar porch-step.
I’ll need to take a nap
this afternoon, but what’s the harm
in that? My erogenous backyard
lures my feet to get
down and step low,
break the mirror on the cedar porch-step,
and walk into the yard.
Don't Blame Narcissus
Narcissus gets a bad rap.
(What would Narcissus’s preferred
pronoun be?)
Is it time for a nap?
Some adults never escape the trap
of infancy, always expecting to be loved
like babies.
But Narcissus’s bad rap
came mainly from being mean to that
Echo chick,
not caring much to be seen by other eyes
(before Venus made them take their long,
wet nap).
So, am I on the hook
for owning charms that you can’t see?
Narcissus gets a bad rap
for wanting to get down to wraps
with their own reflected body—pretty!
It was time for a nap—
the mirror’s glow was in their lap,
like right after you share a bourbon toddy
with someone who got a bad rap
for behaving in a madcap
manner, and for having kind of a potty-
mouth to boot, and finally for stealing
many a nap
from financial death while working for hi-cap
tech companies from ten till three.
Narcissus gets a bad rap
for all their trans-queer selfie-naps.
Socrates the Yokel
I’m rappy and my feet are naked.
I’m badly exemplary!
A naked yokel is a happy yokel!
Different strokes for
different folks, they say.
I’m scrappy, and my feet are naked.
I get choked
up when I encounter the way
others respond to this happy, naked yokel’s
pleasure-packed
approach to living in society!
I’m flappy, and my feet are naked.
I guess I shouldn’t be all that
surprised that the world wants to fuck me—
a cute, slappy, naked yokel.
Nothing under heaven to be embarrassed
about. Trying to be a model citizen
like Socrates—
yappy, and their feet were naked.
A naked yokel is a happy yokel!
The Yokel’s End Times Footsie Drag
Survivalist Yokel HaikuDon’t need no go-bag
‘cause I got my feet. My feet
dance hot go-go drag.
Yokel Commoditization (The Yokel’s Just
Yo in Drag)
What’s the idea of the ancient Yokel narrating
their life in the third person?
Whom do they think they’re fooling?
I mean, is the Yokel a thing—
available for purchase like a stroked hardon?
Next, they’ll be peddling
pics of their cute feet on Toots-o-gram—
nice supplementary income—
five bucks a pop (well, the Yokel’s got
lots of ‘em)—
counted hits of their yummy dogs persuading
other dogs to click the [Lick-Me] icon.
But whom do they think they're fooling?
Sure, they’ve wound hand-spun bling—
twisty red—around their breezy ankles,
but if Toots-o-Gram gets wind
to whom these gorgeous kebs belong,
they’ll cancel su account.
What was the idea of Yo adopting
this persona
in the first place? A quien were they flirting?
So Glad (To Be an Oldtimer in Love)
Grazie, Dion and the Belmonts
White and pink below my writing pad—
chiaroscuro toe-crease shadows and bright
skin.
I’m so glad
to be a podophile
and to have such pretty ones of my own—
white and pink below my writing pad.
I’m simply mad
about my cute pods, and I’ll go all in
on being glad.
I’ll get out of bed,
walk out into the yard, and
step into my rotting
compost hole
if I want to—eggshells and tomato skins.
I’ll be so glad,
resting in the shadows
after my transformation begins
and the worms dance Gladly the Cross-Eyed
Bear on my bones.
I’ll be glad, I’ll be glad, I’ll be glad!
Ticklish
I love my dear love as I love my feet.
My love might cost me many a tear,
but I got my feet for free.
How many times have I used the word sweet?
At least as many times as Lesbia’s sparrow
got to kiss Lesbia’s sweet feet,
its little pecks presumably tickling a bit—
knismesis too light to cause laughter
(but we laugh anyway because laughter
is free).
But is it time to commence our hot
tickle wars
in earnest, stroking each other’s feet
with scratchers of ebony?—
gargalesis for sure!
We can even feel free
to use the mazdo if we we want, while
we masturbate—
lying together seeing stars.
We love one another as we love our feet.
Our feet got us for free!
Please Hit Me With the Milk!
Grazie, Miss Groby and James Thurber.
metonymy - attribute for owner
synecdoche - part for whole
My feet make me amazingly happy!
Are they a metonymy
or a synecdoche?
Well, a synechdoche would be
one member of my anatomie
for my entire identity—one amazingly happy
tootsie-wootsie
for Yours Happily
themselves? A metonymy
would be both those feetsie-weetsie
for the complete adorability
of the world itself—our amazingly happy
Yokel-world with both their podo-parts
attached. We’ll be gone one day
but our fairy feet will still be
doing the Metonymy
Waltz with their partner Eternity.
How sweet that will be!
How amazingly happy
to be a synecdoche!
Savasana Sunbathing
I can lie naked in the sun
by my attic window.
I’m seventy-one,
feeling that my life has just begun!
Look at everything I can still do!
Look at me lying naked in the sun!
How did I get to be the one
who can still fling all this philo dough
at seventy-one?—
even though I’m all alone
in the house, except for the cats—
there’s Quinoa
lying cute and furry in the sun!
Glad my song’s not done
(though I didn’t really want to write
another poem
at seventy-one)!
Toasting my bones (buns)
up here in my attic room,
lying naked in the sun.
I’m seventy-one!
Hare Krishna
When I meditate on
my feet,
is it real meditation?
Is my footsie obsession
distracting?—to me, at least?
Can YOU meditate
by watching me ogle
my feet?
That’s not real meditation,
right?—but more aggravation.
OK, I’m trying to practice
my meditation,
and I need to clear my mind.
Cowherd Krishna, please give me
a mantra to meditate on!
Thanks, I’ll put my feet up on
this stump—Four water pots,
a conch, a cow’s hoof, a fish!
That’s what I call meditation!
Your Feet
In your hot love affair with yourself
(your feet), it’s OK to share your bed
with another hot lover, COVID.
COVID’ll fuck the stuffing
out of you but good
in your hot love affair with yourself
(your feet)! So sweet to own
your real wants and needs
and be ready for what COVID
has in store for you—a final
treat of death to consummate
your hot love affair with yourself
(your feet). But COVID’s not the one
who made your feet ashamed
of themselves (yourself).
self-abusive prude.
Death will make you proud
of yourself, in your hot love affair with
