El Dupree, Selected Works, Volume 2 Alf the Poet, Editor Mary Ellen Paul, from The Spirit of the West Meets the Spirit of Modern Woman: El Dupree, having a craving for a chocolate fish, was tooling down Old World Third Street in Milwaukee on his way to the Ambrosia Chocolate Factory. Suddenly he beheld an awesome vision. Striding purposefully toward him, majestic in her power and beauty, was The Spirit of Modern Woman. Adorned in an impeccable worsted wool suit, simple classic jewelry, and medium heeled leather pumps, she carried her briefcase as if it were...well, a briefcase. Stricken with love and a vague foreboding, El Dupree approached her. Momentarily suppressing his usual flatulence while attempting to suck in his enormous gut (these two feats being nearly impossible to accomplish simultaneously), he poured out his crusty heart to her. "Hey, Chiquita, will you be my companera?" he wheezed. "Get the hell out of my way, Fatso", she snarled, and trampled him. Brian Rice, from Poems of El Dupree, Classic Forms: Double Dactyl ------------- Hazily-lazily Plains drifter El Dupree Wanders the desert waste, Headsack in hand. Mocking crows follow som- Brero with keen eyes and Unceremoniously Sit on the band. Mary Ellen Paul, from El Dupree at the Downer Avenue Fountain: Ever since the fateful day she trampled him, El Dupree cannot forget his great love for the Spirit of Modern Woman. Lovesick, or maybe just nauseated from too many spinach pies at Abu's, he wanders Milwaukee's fashionable East Side hoping for another glimpse of his querida. Too bad, considering that she's moved out to the 'burbs since graduating and starting her career (can you say "white flight?"). Nonetheless, one (rare) sunny Saturday, Kind Fate brings her to the Downer Avenue yuppie shopping district, even as the Malodorous Drifter is haunting that neighborhood in search of her. On spying our hero, the Spirit of Modern Woman almost loses her equanimity. "Oh no", she thinks, "there's that fat horny smelly lout with the goofy hat again". As he approaches her, the lovelight in his eyes glowing from beneath his majestic sombrero, she braces herself to fend off the expected unwelcome advance. "Oh, Chiquita hermosa, will you be my esposa?", pleads the sombrero'd one, the spirit of the west, he of flatulence and existentialism. "Not likely, Bendeco", she sneers as she turns away. Undaunted, our hero whips out his #14 vinyl headsack and throws it over his fair maiden's cabeza. Instantly, she is enlightened. She realizes the slim chance a woman her age has of catching a man, any man. Let's face it, she ain't gonna see 29 again. When you compound her age with her (supposed) intelligence, career aspirations with wardrobe to match, towering height, and her figure (or lack thereof), the picture really gets grim. Suddenly the fat, malodorous, driftless shifter--I mean shiftless drifter--starts a-lookin' a whole lot better than a life alone. "Come on, Bay-Bee, let's make with the Holy Matrimony", she simpers as she drops to her knees. Unfortunately, at this moment El Dupree is also enlightened. Until he got this close to her, he never realized just how small the Spirit of Modern Woman's pechugas were. "Ay, caramba, I can do better than this", he thinks. Leaving the erstwhile apple of his eye headsacked and waiting for his loving touch, he takes off running. Okay, he's too fat to run, but you get the picture. And the Downer Avenue fountain burbles on. Terry Smith, from El Dupree and the Aztec: Heed these words. That the years had taken their toll on his once firm body was evident to any eye, even from the three hundred or so yards across the parched, lizard-infested excuse-for-soil (that men called Dos Diablos) which separated the sombreroed El Dupree from the lean, dark figure standing sinister and erect in the shadow of a giant cactus. And midway between them, on a flat scorched sandstone lay the 2-pound corzappa, the leather-wrapped iron core Aztec implement of destiny, placed there moments before by the dark-eyed boy whom the old secret women called Little Pockets. Yes, El Dupree could use a drink right now. And yes, his butt itched and his belly was on fire from the peppers and dog meat of last night's fiesta, and true, the gauze plug in his infected good left ear needed changing and some more flumavi ointment, but these were conditions that break the fighting spirit of lesser men. Not so for this hombre. A smile came to him as he was strengthened with the reality that, indeed, he thrived on this instant, on the rawness, the electricity, the promise down deep in his manhood. But would he burst out in laughter? Tears? And did the dark stranger know of the corzappa's power? He burped, and was one with the moment. Little Pockets raised the tattered signal rag, the one that, in heartbeat or two, would fall to earth and set into motion an unstoppable event, the outcome of which would change the face of the West and alter Aztec history forever. Lindsey Durway, untitled: It was a little-known fact that the Spirit of Modern Woman was in fact allergic to vinyl and therefore took medication that occasionally rendered her susceptible to hormonal dysfunctions; to wit, the combined odors of Masa Harina and hair oil acted as aphrodisiacs upon her nervous system. It was probably just such a fit of chemically-induced lubricity, so to speak, that caused her to react the way she did on the sidewalk of a Milwaukee street on the fateful day when she fell to the charms of one El Dupree, desperado and one-time encyclopedia salesman. We thus have no choice but to wonder, if the Spirit of Modern Woman had not been fearfully dependent on the artifices of the medical industry (specifically, her allergy medicine), would she have not behaved in that impulsive fashion that resulted in the flight of our hero, El Dupree, back to the Great Southwest, the hinterland of his nativity? We can only guess. Lindsey Durway, untitled: The sombrerosaur first appeared in that part of Gondwana that was to become, some 90 million years later, Central America. It fed on indigenous proto-grains and, when not running from the swooping distaffdactyl (ancestor of modern-day Spirit of Modern Woman), lived in small nests woven from grassy reeds. The nest was unusual because of its central column, a cone-shaped protrusion extending some 6 or 7 inches higher than the outer edge of the nest. When the sombrerosaur migrated, it carried the nest on its head to the new locale. The nest's conical center column fit neatly on the sombrerosaur's somewhat pointed cranium, providing stability during the journey. During springtime, it was not unusual to see the Central Gondwana plains stippled with sombrerosaur nests, typically festooned with leis, small drinking straws topped with pin wheels, and fruit-shaped nick-nacks similar to those used by modern humans to decorate expensive beverages. Life was sweet.