WALKING ON THIN ICE

dead butterfly outside the doctor’s office - foto by smith

this has been one of my favorite poems ever since i came across it at loyola college in 1972. it worked for me in my late twenties when i was married, it worked when i divorced and dated, it worked during my twenty year voluntary celibacy, and it works now in my sixties married to my loverly lady.

Danse Russe

If I when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,—
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
“I am lonely, lonely.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!”
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades,—

Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?

William Carlos Williams , 1917

i recently read that non-poets, bad poets, or the uneducated should not select and display other’s poetry because they don’t know enough to be discerning. well, i been to school, and i write a few, so i guess this one’s okay.

but that seems an elitist position, more like the educated insiders called academics telling the rest of us how to hear, read, and appreciate. most academics i know write the most boring dry poetry i come across.

sometimes the more you know, the less you know. folk get caught up in famous names and shallow rules and miss the joy of verse. besides, why should anyone be condemned for writing a poem? a bad poem is better than no poem at all, and the worst poet in the world may through practice, luck or inspiration rise through time and life to write the best poem in the world. we all have to start somewhere. i started writing poetry in 1964 years before i ever took a poetry class. my poetry from then cannot hold a candle to what i write now - except for half a dozen master poems.

let the children lead. old farts are too cranky anyway. (i’m an old fart, so i can say this).

there are even cases of folk writing a tremendous amount of well-crafted, self-centered, esoteric, solipsistic, self-witty poems, but for every hundred pieces of waste they write, they create 10 fantastic ones. are we to condemn those good 10 with the bad 90?

poetry requires one to suffer and sit through shit for the unexpected jewel. so does music, fiction, movies, concerts. the cream of the crop makes us all look bad, that’s just the way life is.

and the worst thing those supposedly in the know can do is attack another poet - it hurts, undermines their sense of self, may prevent them from rising to the next level of intimacy. and why would anyone want to deprive the world of another poem? - even the worst poem brings a ray of joy into the writer’s heart. why not attack tv instead, a genuine abomination whose each hour of daily watching increases one’s risk of alzheimer’s.

i say you don’t like someone, instead of attacking them, don’t read them. most poetry is less than perfect be it hearing, reading, or writing. poetry is not for the faint-hearted or the impatient. if you are able to and do want to help another up the ladder, then praise in public, put down in private.

my favorite poet EVER is bob dylan. and i’m still fond of t. s. eliot, though not as much as i was 30 years ago. but i’m more interested in living poets. i’ve listened to a bunch work their way from confusion to enlightenment.

the church of not quite so much pain & suffering says “go thee and suffer less.” what folk seem to forget is its corollary - go thee and cause less suffering to others as well. do as you would be done is the whole of the law.

i’m a poet and i know it cuz my heart flows it my words glow it so if you can’t own it best not show it or you’ll blow it.

broken poem - foto by smith