A Toyota’s a Toyota…
Readers will likely know Dmitri Martin as an actor, or as a musician, or perhaps most likely, as a comedian. But it turns out that he’s no mean mangler of words. He recently composed the poem below– which is a 224-word palindrome, as readers will discover if they read it both from the beginning and from the end.
“Dammit I’m Mad”
Dammit I’m mad.
Evil is a deed as I live.
God, am I reviled? I rise, my bed on a sun, I melt.
To be not one man emanating is sad. I piss.
Alas, it is so late. Who stops to help?
Man, it is hot. I’m in it. I tell.
I am not a devil. I level “Mad Dog”.
Ah, say burning is, as a deified gulp,
In my halo of a mired rum tin.
I erase many men. Oh, to be man, a sin.
Is evil in a clam? In a trap?
No. It is open. On it I was stuck.
Rats peed on hope. Elsewhere dips a web.
Be still if I fill its ebb.
Ew, a spider… eh?
We sleep. Oh no!
Deep, stark cuts saw it in one position.
Part animal, can I live? Sin is a name.
Both, one… my names are in it.
Murder? I’m a fool.
A hymn I plug, deified as a sign in ruby ash,
A Goddam level I lived at.
On mail let it in. I’m it.
Oh, sit in ample hot spots. Oh wet!
A loss it is alas (sip). I’d assign it a name.
Name not one bottle minus an ode by me:
“Sir, I deliver. I’m a dog”
Evil is a deed as I live.
Dammit I’m mad.
As we practice reversing, we might note that today is the birthday of radio storyteller extraordinaire Ira Glass; he was born on this date in 1959.
But even as the Universe gives, it takes away. Lou “Who’s on first?” Costello died that same day.
Costello with his partner, Bud Abbott (source)