The hard shallow mask of
Don Imus the jock of shock
has not cracked despite being
caught as Old Geezer Disparager
of young black women college
athletes
Take it from me his conjoined
twin who hides under his white
cowboy hat, his little malformed
double, always humiliated and
invisibilized by Imus the superstar
who in our mother’s uterus swore
And prophesized that he, Imus
would pay close attention to the
preferences of his audience in order
to become rich and richer
thus, in music, songwriting and
packaging of my conjoined twin
Don Imus––being a misogynist racist
is profitable and reliable
it is being a member of a superclass
__a superclass of dickheads
self-swallowing self-devouring
dickheads
A rainbow coalition who are the
solar system! and if I sound a little
bitter and resentful––well chalk
it up to my feeling the way I do
as a conjoined twin always expendable
but morally superior to my brother
Imus the parasitic twin
Rochelle Owens is the author of eighteen books of poetry and plays, the most recent of which are Plays by Rochelle Owens (Broadway Play Publishing, 2000) and Luca, Discourse on Life and Death (Junction Press, 2001). A pioneer in the experimental off-Broadway theatre movement and an internationally known innovative poet, she has received Village Voice Obie awards and honors from the New York Drama Critics Circle. Her plays have been presented worldwide and in festivals in Edinburgh, Avignon, Paris, and Berlin. Her play Futz, which is considered a classic of the American avant-garde theatre, was produced by Ellen Stewart at LaMama, directed by Tom O’Horgan and performed by the LaMama Troupe in 1967, and was made into a film in 1969. A French language production of Three Front was produced by France-Culture and broadcast on Radio France. She has been a participant in the Festival Franco-Anglais de Poésie, and has translated Liliane Atlan’s novel Les passants, The Passersby (Henry Holt, 1989). She has held fellowships from the NEA, Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and numerous other foundations. She has taught at the University of California, San Diego and the University of Oklahoma and held residencies at Brown and Southwestern Louisiana State.
