Barack, Beatnick

The Guardian reprints two poems by Barack Obama, recently discovered in a probably-better-off-lost college literary journal. Obama's deployment of the enjambment, an honest-to-God literary technique, sets his poetry apart from most of what I read as the editor of my alma mater's humble literary journal. But it's still familiar stuff: Pop is about a grandparent, which is the True North of collegiate poetry, the subject toward which every student knows to steer even without a compass. (The other pole being sex, a much less welcome topic, as these are written in hopes of squicking out the reader, often with alarming success. Toward the end, one of Obama's enjambs inadvertently crosses into this territory, but that's just a happy accident of bad writing.)

Pop

Sitting in his seat, a seat broad and broken
In, sprinkled with ashes,
Pop switches channels, takes another
Shot of Seagrams, neat, and asks
What to do with me, a green young man
Who fails to consider the
Flim and flam of the world, since
Things have been easy for me;
I stare hard at his face, a stare
That deflects off his brow;
I'm sure he's unaware of his
Dark, watery eyes, that
Glance in different directions,
And his slow, unwelcome twitches,
Fail to pass.
I listen, nod,
Listen, open, till I cling to his pale,
Beige T-shirt, yelling,
Yelling in his ears, that hang
With heavy lobes, but he's still telling
His joke, so I ask why
He's so unhappy, to which he replies . . .
But I don't care anymore, cause
He took too damn long, and from
Under my seat, I pull out the
Mirror I've been saving; I'm laughing,
Laughing loud, the blood rushing from
his face
To mine, as he grows small,
A spot in my brain, something
That may be squeezed out, like a
Watermelon seed between
Two fingers.
Pop takes another shot, neat,
Points out the same amber
Stain on his shorts that I've got on mine,
and
Makes me smell his smell, coming
From me; he switches channels, recites
an old poem
He wrote before his mother died,
Stands, shouts, and asks
For a hug, as I shink, my
Arms barely reaching around
His thick, oily neck, and his broad back;
'cause
I see my face, framed within
Pop's black-framed glasses
And know he's laughing too.

Obama's other poem, well, it makes no sense.

Underground

Under water grottos, caverns
Filled with apes
That eat figs.
Stepping on the figs
That the apes
Eat, they crunch.
The apes howl, bare
Their fangs, dance,
Tumble in the
Rushing water,
Musty, wet pelts
Glistening in the blue.