dealing with my dumbness

Once upon a time, in a physiology far, far away, there lived a fellow of my height and build (minus, say, ten, er . . . twenty pounds of flesh) with my blond hair (plus, say, fifty, er . . . seventy-five percent more volume) who was considered a man of astute perception, now and then erudite, always inquisitive, and, more often than not, brimming with strong, at-least-partially-justified opinions.

His exploits were many. Armed to the hilt with gleaming rhetoric and razoresque wit, he set about vanquishing armies of brute Ignoramuses, felling along the way fey beasts of sundry ilks--It of the Daft, It of the Dunce, It of the Downright Dippy.

All was well (discounting, of course, the alienation of friends and family) until one day, a day of doom, he was greeted by the grinning dragon--that coiled wyrm of distant legend--Oligodendroglioma. For years they fought, meeting in the wilds or along well-traveled paths. At first, they were evenly matched. He met his foe with aplomb and jocularity. But time wore on, as did his nerve, his will, and his strength.

At last, the Recondite Knight was forced to lay his weapons down. Very little has been heard of him since. Legend has spotted him napping copiously and staring, nonplussed, into the depths of space and time.

_________________________________________________


Moral: I'm dumb anymore. And one of the greatest feats of my life to date has been coming to terms with my chronically benighted state of mind. Every day and all around, issues of great importance mock my decreasing ability to comprehend them, much less expound upon or rail against them.

The seeming and/ or real, literal and/ or emotional disenfranchisement of Mexicans; Occupation of paved roads against amorphous fiends; the Ontology of Me and the Otherhood of You. It's like . . .you know . . . er . . . yeah . . . what do you call it? . . . uh, is that a rabbit over there?

But I am coming to terms. Slowly, unsurely, I'm relocating myself in the scheme of things. Where answers elude me, beauty finds me. Where gravity drops me, I rise on an invisible gust, transported to a realm of shrugged shoulders and wide, wondering eyes. Sometimes it's pleasant here. Sometimes excruciatingly lonely. The loveliness and the horror vacillate. But I belong here. Whether once I was meant to know, to understand, to argue, is irrelevant now. Now I am meant to guess, to ponder, to behold.

In short, the poet has a place and mine is in nature. The heart is a short migration from the mind. The knight trades his tower for a hermitage, grows vegetables and talks sensibly with invading bunny-rabbits.

Happily? Leave that to the utilitarians. Ever-after? Leave that to the metaphysicians.

The end? Leave that to me.

gem-stumbling in german thought

Sporadically, I study the angst-smothered yet-somehow-delightful writings of Friedrich Nietzsche. Well, "study" might be a stretch--I quit studying a long time ago--probably a phenomenon concurrent with quitting my cigarettes--the latter being a function of the former along with heavy drinking and pre-medicated anxiety. So let's just say that every now and then I pick up an unfinished book of Nietzsche's and pseudo-studiously read a few pages with the intent of one day finishing the dang thang.

Today I laid some more inroads in the seemingly interminable and largely inscrutable The Will to Power. Of the several Nietzsche offerings I have read, this particular one would come least recommended by me however so integral to N's over-all "philosophy" the musings might be. And they are integral, best as I can tell.

At any rate, as so often I have in the past, I stumbled upon a gem of concurrence between the grumpy sage and I.

For a long time now (and longer and longer now and now), I have sought subjects for my poetry that disturb the common notion of beauty. I have modified my proclivity towards the Wordsworthian Sublime to include an adoration of the stultified mundane and the staggering mutant. (A modification Wordsworth himself made as he grew older, less assured of his faith in memory and nature. But enough scholarship already . . . I have no cigarettes, no booze, and my medication alone is a poor defense.)

So as to my affinity with N. regarding the above:

"To represent terrible and questionable things is, in itself, the sign of an instinct of power and magnificence in the artist; he doesn't fear them . . . There is no such thing as a pessimistic art . . . Art affirms [. . .] The things they [such artists] show us are ugly; their reason, however, for showing them to us is their love of ugliness [. . . ] What a relief Dostoievsky is!"

Bear in mind, I claim no magnificence as an artist nor fully subscribe to N's perception of the "instinct of power." However, if not the spirit of the argument then the stuff of the argument stands. Life is mostly gross. Mostly stubbed toes and F-bombs. Mostly venom and bile. Mostly cow-cud and llama spit. For every daffodil, a million weeds. For every wandering cloud, an ominous, hail-gorged dark one.

I will end this post with one more quote from N because 1] it is apropos and 2] it makes me giggle.

"It is absolutely unworthy of a philosopher to say that 'the good and the beautiful are one'; if he should add 'and also the true,' he deserves to be thrashed. Truth is ugly. Art is with us that we may not perish through truth."

And finally with a bonus quote from my poem, "Ten More on Sandstone Tablets":

I shall stop and smell the sewage, too,

Otherwise the rose is just a rose that’s just a rose.

on being and rudeness

"You really are."

You--in this case it was me.
Really--in full actuality, in this case modifying "are".
Are--present indicative of being, in this case a "real" being and therefore, existentially, presumably, an ontological inarguability.

And now, because I've brought it up . . .

Ontological Inarguability--a phrase I just made up intended to mean that a "Being" can only BE what it IS, "really," no more, no less, regardless of prejudice, hindsight disallowed. (Though Sartre, I believe, would have us also being Will-ares and Was-bes (phrases I just made up and with which I am self-delighted)--an amalgam of forgotten and unknowable states, respectively--but in this case, let's be satisfied with a limited definition of "Being.")

So it was like this:

Earlier, I was compelled to stop productive momentum, be-coat myself, and drive to the library--some books and movies for to return. I was listening to my Speak German CDs and calling out responses to the teacher's prompts when my turn came upon me suddenly. Traffic was heavy and I am easily confused when thrust into the Immediate. Heroically, I navigated my course successfully, wedged though I was, precariously between two cars, fore and aft.

However, as I made my turn into the library's parking lot, I noticed that another car--one of those mini-vans-but-not-really-- was all tight up in my business like a lead ball in a musket. The driver, a blond woman, veered left when I turned right toward the drop-off awning. No harm, no foul.

Leaving my car running (the weather outside was frightful and my heat was sure da-da-dah), I dropped my materials into the outside deposit slot. I turned back to my car and was confronted by a red-faced blond woman.

"Could you really not let me in back there? You were in such a hurry?" she barked at me. "You're gonna make me miss the library when I'm trying to turn in my kid's book so it won't be late?" she continued, in quite a froth. I shrugged, stunned. Again, confused by the unexpected immediacy. But it dawned on me, maybe this woman was trying to get in the turn-lane that I was so tenuously keeping in line with. But I would never . . . not on purpose . . . it's just not the way I am . . .

"You are rude on Christmas, you know that?" she says and then (wait for it) . . .

(wait for it) . . .

"You really are!"

As she strode triumphantly through the library's automatic doors, I managed a polite "Who even are you?" But she was gone.

And gone she is and yet those three words still linger. On the drive home, I actually felt bad. Some kind of jerk, I am. She had almost missed her turn. (Another, more accessible, wider-laned, turn was a mere thirty feet farther down, but still.) Her precious child had a brush with delinquency. (Narrowly missed by the six hours before closing, but still.) And on Christmas, no less. (December 13, but still.) I was truly disturbed, upset. My stomach felt empty, my chest cold. The thought--I am rude--like a dull ache in my head.

But wait. No I am not. Not when it comes to courtesy on the road. In fact, I err on the side of extreme, inordinate, extra-mile-type courtesy when it comes to allowing drivers to merge and cut or enter the traffic. One car, two cars, oh what the hell, three cars come on in. The more's not the merrier but we all gotta get where we're going in this life, might as well scootch in.

So why was I letting myself feel guilty of an un-willed act? A fact of circumstance not at all linked to my Being; an event of objects not of subjects. Of cars and calendars and just one in a billion near collisions across the universe any given second.

Maybe that's the way I am. Too easily mussed by the "gaze of the other." [Sartre] Too readily ashamed of my place in a big, fast, confusing world.

snuggle-puff

Look how my little babies have grown. Granted not much, but they're jus' lil' things to begin with. (Check out their baby pictures, I'll wait.) Clearly, Beans [left] has grown the most all around. Pickles [center] has gotten taller but remained skinny. Scooter [right] . . . well Scooter's a little tubbier and still the shorty of the trio. But bless his heart, he's still my favorite because he's safest to pet. Quite the snuggle-puff by comparison, actually.

Meanwhile, what have I done in two months? I love my cacti, but darn if they haven't made me feel stunted. Have I grown at all? Girth-wise, let's just say I'm like Scooter minus the shortiness.
But I'm not here to talk physiology; I'm here to talk poetry, philosophy--of life's riches and dearths. Have I made progress in my understanding of the world? No. In fact, I have been in retrograde motion in that regard since I was 25. Have I grown to know myself any better? Well, I have grown to bore myself more, if that counts. Hopefully that's just the contempt born of familiarity and not the 4D image I project on the world.
Have I learned new things--unnecessary but beautiful things? Have I chiseled any marble-nudes? Are there any tempera frescoes on my ceiling? Perhaps, I expect too much of myself. Maybe I should measure my success in ounces and millimeters. One poem at a time. Paragraph by paragraph. In doses of modest improvement. Horizons expanded by the merest thread each day.

All things considered, it may be my only choice. Which is no choice at all but one, nonetheless, I must choose. Or not. There's the philosophy. Here's the poetry: Cacti are green/ Roses aren't blue/ Both will prick flesh/ What else is new?

yet my jogging days

Sometimes, New Friend, I consider my capabilities. What are my strengths; what are my handicaps? Almost immediately to mind and for as long as anyone can remember; my two or three cups of tea have been of the cerebral variety. Which is to say, as a child and youth, I spent a lot of time in the woods familiarizing myself with loneliness--unless you count the squirrels and caterpillars. But being alone was fine; it gave me time to consider. Things. Stuff. Whatnot. The stuff of science and poetry--the abstract made tactile, odoriferous, enumerable. From such a springboard, my trajectory could hardly shoot me anywhere but where I landed. Where did I land? In college studying literature and philosophy. (In gymnastic terms, one might say I "stuck the landing," too--given the virtual decade I haunted the information-stained walls of my two alma maters. Ha--that sounds like a sitcom. My Two Alma Maters. Something to do with lesbianism and awkwardness . . . hmmm . . . I'll think about it . . . )

On the other hand, what of my physical strengths? Do I have any? Have I ever had any? Short answer: No. Long answer: No, not really. Longer answer: Sure, with four brothers, I spent a good deal of time playing sports and engaged in less organized physical activity. And I have the scars to prove it. And the lingering psychological torments. Going to small private schools afforded me the opportunity of starting on basketball teams. Because my six-feet of height was good enough to earn me a role under rim grabbing boards and slinging elbows. Sadly, I averaged about four points a game--abysmal for someone who often had the ball directly under the rim. For the most part, my athletic achievements were of the participatory variety.

So that's the background but where am I today? Cerebrally--essentially where I have been immemorially. That is, engrossed in things, stuff, and whatnot. Sometimes happily, sometimes begrudgingly. And physically? Well, I can muster a reasonable round of golf and lift piddling nieces and nephews over my head for a few giddy moments.

I have an old poem, New Friend, that arose from one of these moods of mine--this self-evaluation, of sorts. I think you might like it. You strike me as the intergalactic type.



On the Intergalactic Distribution of Talents

Light echoes star to star.
Time groans deeply in worm-
Holes like a tuba.
Five years to tie my first laces.

Hydrogen huddles and breaks
Into everything. Particles fox-
Trot, waltz and tango.
Six months and I manage a two-step.

Perennial Maypole of spiraling
Suns. Earth wobbles but never
Falls Down.
Yet my jogging days are over.