Doctor Mel Blanc
in the House
Untinted or tinged, un-
Touched and un-
Fingerprinted,
No skin or feather cells,
The Y-chromosome may
Actually be missing—
Or something else; in an earth
Without wind?
Who collects the leaves?
You must realize this.
Nothing—and yet we
Tremble. Perhaps
We ought to sleep
This off? Yeah,
What’s up Doc?
Marc Vincenz is an Anglo-Swiss-American poet, a fiction writer, translator, editor, publisher, designer, multi-genre artist and musician. He has published sixteen books of poetry, including more recently, Becoming the Sound of Bees, Leaning into the Infinite, The Syndicate of Water & Light, Here Comes the Nightdust, Einstein Fledermaus and the forthcoming A Brief Conversation with Consciousness. Vincenz’ novella set in ancient China, Three Taos of T’ao, or How to Catch a Fortuitous Elephant is forthcoming from Spuyten Duyvil. An album of music, ambients and verse, Left Hand Clapping, is also forthcoming from TreeTorn Records. Vincenz is also a prolific translator and has translated from the German, Romanian and French. He has published ten books of translations, most recently Unexpected Development by award-winning Swiss poet and novelist Klaus Merz (White Pine, 2018) and which was a finalist for the 2016 Cliff Becker Book Prize in Translation. His translation of Klaus Merz’s selected poems, An Audible Blue, is forthcoming from White Pine Press. Vincenz is editor and publisher of MadHat Press, and publisher of New American Writing. He has lived and worked all over the world—from Brazil to Spain to China to Iceland to India. He was born in Mathilda Hospital on the Peak in Hong Kong, but now lives on a farm in rural Western Massachusetts overlooking Herman Melville’s Greylock Mountain, and where there are more black bears, raccoons, and groundhogs than people.