I thought Alanis was ironic.

Julie: "And I think those of us still in the thread may have just set some sort of record here for wandering the farthest off topic, in multiple directions. High fives all around! (And Matt, we might actually be able to get Google to sponsor this thread. I know a guy....)"

Here’s tae us! Wha’s like us? Gey few, and they’re a’ deid!

Cheers,
John

This should get us back to the original topic of Harrison's poem.

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/75...n-sex-cake-ii/

... and that seems fair enough. It's not performed, like Harrison's comparison, over the prone body of some hapless and nameless semi-participant. It is more democratic.

Cheers,
John

Update: maybe hapless is a bit strong. But then again, maybe not. People deserve to be people when they are being put up for show.
I also think of this from Seinfeld: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvOsNPPS8l0

The structure reminds me of certain Cavafy poems--memory of a lost time of pleasure, followed by brief lament. And that makes me question whether this brief time (also "a thing that passes") pays tribute to a long-lost friend. In that case, the narrator would have no reason at all to invoke a specific woman because he has no way of doing so. He is then limited by facts (whether autobiographical to Harrison or created.)

I dislike the opening because it makes me think of cartoon farts: ridiculous.

As the mother of boys who grew up camping and the wife of someone who tumbled up in a blue collar family, I find the stump business quite apt for what young guys do when camping and carousing in the woods. The quickness, the hurling lights and shadows, the hiss, the awakening of birds: these are more vivid for me than anything else in the poem.

I'll stand by what I said. While there's no doubt that this poem shows talent, I have to question the poet's vision, based on the close. Which is, to be kind, unoriginal. Lazy. Or worse, deliberately appealing to an audience who is sympathetic to the same. Hoagland knew how to do this.

Keep in mind that Harrison had his eye torn out when he was a kid by a girl with a broken bottle. They were arguing about something.

I don't care if he were run over by a bus.