Well folks, I’m afraid that I am going to have to temporarily stray from the relatively light-hearted tone of the last few days’ rants to bring you a Real-Deal-Holyfield-Angry-American Rant (with a capital ‘R’).
(MIKE H. – YOU MIGHT NOT WANT TO READ ANY FURTHER. I love you – and you know this – but even if the following rant doesn't tick you off, I feel pretty sure that your reply to me re: what I’m about to say will tick me off. We just have to agree to disagree on this one. I know how you feel, and I honestly wish that you were right.)
For the rest of you, I am including a poem at the end of today’s rant (so, even if you don’t want to read the rant, skip down to the poem). It’s one of my originals, and my first published. It is extremely pertinent, given the subject of today’s rant, and I feel that it is one of the most powerful things I have ever written, and I think that’s due to the fact that my feelings on the subject are so strong.
I peruse the ‘net headlines everyday, world news, the gamut, and try to make a little sense of it all. I also try not to let it make me too scared, too sad, too angry. Today though, I ran across the glut of headlines regarding the photos of the coffins of the US soldiers.
Those of you who know me, or even those who read my rants regularly, know how I feel about the news and it’s portrayal of death and misery. One of the main things that made me give up tv was the media’s sick exposure of the details of my cousins gruesome, sad and untimely death. Luckily, there were no photos, but they reported a lot of un-necessary details – details that my family was trying hard to keep from me – that caused me a great deal of pain. They still do.
I agree with the Bush administration’s opinion that photos of the bodies in the field are un-necessary. That would cause the families more pain than people should have to bear. But the photos of the coffins are anonymous, and powerful, and make it all very real, which is precisely what the families of these dead people - as well as all Americans – need to see. That this war is REAL. That our people are DYING. And in greater numbers every day –despite the fact that “Victory is Ours” and “the war is over”. I wish that George Bush’s purpose was really to protect the families of these soldiers, but it is not. His purpose is to protect his chances of being able to cheat his way into office for one more term, to protect his reputation, to protect his family’s oil money and holdings, to protect Haliburton’s* contract to rebuild the country that we – he – destroyed, and to keep Americans – and the rest of the world – complacent while he does whatever he wants to with this country’s resources. Including the men and women who are now nothing more than weight in flag-bedecked boxes and memories.
I applaud the sites brave enough to show these pictures. I am in vehement opposition of media sources that needlessly and shamelessly exploit human misery in order to get ratings, but at the same time, I want to get a view of what’s happening in the world that is as humanely realistic as possible. I think that the vision of wrecked bodies is as real as it gets, but the average human mind and heart are incapable of dealing with that well. I think we just shut down and our minds refuse to process it. I think that seeing a number - for example the current {Iraq Coalition casualty count}** of US war dead is 713 -
and what does a string of numbers mean? Even if there were a site that showed a counter counting up the number of American war casualties to the same number of deaths related to the Twin Tower bombings***, we would still not be able to comprehend it. It would still be anonymous numbers. So where is the balance? How can we get an idea of what this war really means without increasing the suffering of the ever-growing numbers of grieving Americans? By showing the photos of those rows of coffins, covered with the flags that (we hope) they believed that they died for.
The Bush administration is relying on this country’s ability to mentally sweep unpleasant things under the carpet of denial. Unfortunately, they have a reason to feel that this might work, and to a great extent, it has. They believe that if we don’t see these coffins, these large numbers of soldiers coming home in boxes, that we will forget and somehow re-elect him – or not RIOT when he re-elects himself.
I celebrate these sites and reporters who fight so hard and take such risks and brave chances in order to see that we know what is happening in our country, past our local papers and local news and stilted, partisan, paid-off national papers and channels.
This rant was inspired by the yesterdays’ BBC and API news items:
‘US concern over war dead photos’; ‘No cameras for US war dead’s return’; ‘Photos of GI’s caskets cost worker her job’; and ‘Widely published photos of US coffins anger Pentagon’.
Apparently:
“A total of 360 photos taken by the Air Force were released to the Internet site www.thememoryhole.org by the Pentagon after the site requested them under the Freedom of Information Act.(AFP/HO-USAF)”
This obviously displeased the Powers that Be, and for obvious reasons, I think.
My best friend is the child of a retired Military Officer, he admired his father and his military career immensely. He is also a history buff, and a realistic man who believes that these things – war and related incidents - HAVE to happen sometimes. He is not a liberal, nor is he a neo-fascist. He is an intelligent, educated, mature man who sees all the main sides of the issue. Nonetheless, his opinion on the matter (and he has respectfully played Devil’s Advocate for the current administration and its choices in this conflict in the midst of a number of my extended rants) was this: “It is not disrespectful to show these coffins to the world. It is disrespectful NOT to.”
Support these sites and these fearless fact-finders, folks. They are fighting in their own way to keep this country free. Those soldiers are doing the hardest job, fighting a mindless cause in a very hostile place, and for the same reasons. But there are also ‘small soldiers’ in this country, and they are fighting another enemy of freedom, another greedy, ruthless, careless regime.
I found some amazing things while trying to track down the facts about this latest wave of manipulative attempts at censorship.
Here is the link for “The Memory Hole – Rescuing Knowledge, Freeing Information” site. These are the folks responsible for getting the Air Force to release these photos under the American Freedom of Information Act. I also found this excellent article by Columbia Professor and Journalist Sree Sreenivasan on The Memory Hole site.
Here is another site, which seems a lot more whimsical and esoteric, but is definitely trying to achieve the same purpose within a different demographic.
On the subject of memory holes, another site that feels compelled to expose the “glossed over” and “swept under” news is Loompanics.com,
and the ‘What Really Happened’ site is particularly vociferous pursuant of the truth in media.
I found this article about some of the ways that the current administration is able to manipulate and limit the kinds and amount of information that is available to people:
"Jesse Berney at Kicking Ass explains why the White House has prevented Google and other search engines from indexing the files on its public website that mention Iraq: if it's not indexed, it's not archived, making it harder to prove later that some inconvenient fact has disappeared down the Memory Hole.”
I mourn at the sight of these coffins, the reading of these names and hometowns and the way these soldiers died. I mourn for the loss of our country’s rights, and our planets’ safety. I mourn for the cold, brutal knowledge that the wealthy really don’t care what happens to everyone else as long as their money and land is safe and there is at least someone left to work for them.
I know that I can be perceived as a bleeding-heart liberal, a paranoid conspiracy theorist, or any other clichéd tag that the people who’s wealth, certainty of position and ability to just be RIGHT need to put on me and people like me. But even the ultra-conservative people who know me well know that I have no hidden agenda other than fear of loss of freedom and a deep abiding concern for all people. Even the ones who scare me. Maybe ESPECIALLY the ones who scare me.
Keep fighting, keep questioning, keep supporting our soldiers who have to be there, but most of all, keep trying to get them home, and not in boxes.
Giant
Mother holds the tricolor triangle,
Her knuckles wound as white
As her face
And the flowers wilting
On the lid of the big wooden box.
Empty as promises,
Dry as Texas,
I watch the thin, gritty breeze
Blow across the graveyard,
Looking for something to feel.
I am not like the soldiers,
Who fear for their own lives,
Or the friends of the family,
Who knew this would happen,
Or my father, who thinks
“My son died for his country”,
Or my mother,
Who thinks that nothing is left
But this sandy bolt of cloth
That rests on her lap…
Twenty-one shots
Echo into hot, Texas-forever,
None of the bullets stopped
By the soft bodies of men.
Tears fall into empty spaces,
And are sucked up by the dirt.
***
(I wrote this in 1991 while my brother was facing some of the most dangerous time of his own military career. It was also inspired by a very poignant scene in the James Dean film ‘Giant’)
Peace,
-Sam
*FYI, Haliburton is the company of which George Bush Sr. was once on the stockholders board, Colin Powell was hired to give speeches at their dinners and paid in stock, of which Dick Cheney was once the chief executive. Totally by coincidence, of course.
**this part of the site lists their ID, name, rank, branch of service, and tells where they were assigned to, where they were based, the date they were killed, the fatality cause and location. I warn you, there are 41 pages, starting with US Marine 2nd lieutenant Therrel Childers, who was killed on March 21, 2003. He was 30, he was from Harrison County, Mississippi, and he was killed in Southern Iraq by hostile fire.
I also discovered that there are 873 wounded, and here is a sick p.s. regarding some of the wounded and the possibility of miscount.
***and if you recall correctly, the Bush administration did not put any “bans” on the media exposure of the photos of the 911 dead.
Saturday, April 24, 2004
Friday, April 23, 2004
hello, peeps. i have been doing SO good with the daily blogs that i didn't want to leave today without posting something. i began writing a rant that i will finish and post tomorrow - it's been a very busy day, sorry. i will warn you in advance that tomorrow's rant is tangentially opposed to the personal and relatively peaceful poetry rants i've had for y'all for the last few days, although it will still contain one of my poems. tomorrow's rant is a big one, and a political one, and y'all know how i can get...*
but for today, despite my disturbed heart and mind - or maybe BECAUSE of them, i will leave you with some sweetness, something much smaller and yet much bigger than this mess that mr. !@#$ bush, and all the other careless and greedy world "leaders" have put us all into.
this is a re-print of part of my april 4 rant from last year - my experimental 'southern haiku' about the seasons of my childhood.
These four are called ‘Bulletin Board’
Dusk light, dogwood glow,
silk of shift from fourth to third,
tar to dirt, river road.
Beloved Gramaw
puts sliced ripe homegrown
tomatoes on the table.
Still dark – wake to coffee smell.
Men in kitchen laugh.
Soon, white-tail will fall.
Scent of wintergreen,
pine, Vap-o-rub, I sleep well.
I will wake to warmth.
much love, and as many as the endless universe full of stars' prayers for peace,
-sayuri
*mike, that's a warning for you, honey.
but for today, despite my disturbed heart and mind - or maybe BECAUSE of them, i will leave you with some sweetness, something much smaller and yet much bigger than this mess that mr. !@#$ bush, and all the other careless and greedy world "leaders" have put us all into.
this is a re-print of part of my april 4 rant from last year - my experimental 'southern haiku' about the seasons of my childhood.
These four are called ‘Bulletin Board’
Dusk light, dogwood glow,
silk of shift from fourth to third,
tar to dirt, river road.
Beloved Gramaw
puts sliced ripe homegrown
tomatoes on the table.
Still dark – wake to coffee smell.
Men in kitchen laugh.
Soon, white-tail will fall.
Scent of wintergreen,
pine, Vap-o-rub, I sleep well.
I will wake to warmth.
much love, and as many as the endless universe full of stars' prayers for peace,
-sayuri
*mike, that's a warning for you, honey.
Thursday, April 22, 2004
Sometimes it seems that my poeems are better read out loud than in print. I get really powerful reactions from folks* when I read them. I haven’t managed to school myself in that freaky stilted sort of ‘slam poetry’ style** that ‘professional poets’ seem to favor, so when I read, I just read from my heart as if I actually MEAN what I am saying, and not just trying to impress people with how cool I sound. I like to read other poets’ work out loud, to myself, so please, if you feel like it, read mine to yourself. Maybe it’s that I try to write things that it feels good to say out loud, I dunno.
Here’s a fun one for you to read out. (I wrote this not too long after I moved here.)
Amputee
This planet was a garden once. That may be the only thing that we can all agree on.
(Except that guy on 7th Street, the one with the tin-foil hat, who thinks
that we are just a cosmic Jr. Food Mart for some higher intelligence.
Maybe he’s right. Maybe we – the Egyptians, or the Masons, or somebody’s rich great-grandpa – sold the rights, or wrote up a 20 million year lease:
“Dino’s Exterminated Free!!! Withsalepurchaseofplanet, taxableinMilkyWayGalaxyat
nominalfeeof42% - Non-negotiable.)
However you look at it, we – biggest brain on the planet
(weeding out the competition daily)
- have turned it into a machine.
One big Willy Wonka factory of delights,
Well designed to … … … what?
Bring us pleasure? Yes, that’s it.
And so we crank up the machine, wind up the toy, streamline our costs, power up,
downscale, become more efficient, micromanage, multi-task, and increase our maximum potential. For … … … what?
To eat, drink, sleep, run, watch tv, immerse ourselves in sound, food, dreams, sex, love, art, babies, sunshine, cats, laundry, death, Oprah, clothes, advice, fear, words, work, skin, pain, exercise, gossip, church, drugs, books, tears, thought, paint, obsession, care, M.A.S.H., serial killing and other natural disasters, meditation, war, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, music, each other, and god, to … … … what?
To distract ourselves from the itch
or the pain
of the place
where our wings used to be.
***
This is another one that I love to read out loud. I seldom write rhyming poetry. I am not a Poet, and so I feel unqualified to dabble in such lofty pursuits as meter. But this little sonnet HAD to rhyme, as I also seldom write Lurve poeems, and the sentiment seemed to call for this form.
There’s also a funny and ironic story behind this piece.
My room mate during my last semester at USM and I were sitting on a bench outside the commons, watching folks come and go outside the cafeteria. We were discussing s-e-x – or actually the lack thereof, and we were using household terms as metaphors. In fact, it started off with Meg talking about the last time there’d been a “car parked in her garage”, and I said “Car, sheesh! I don’t even have a lawn mower in mine!” This of course degenerated into jokes about hiring lawn boys, etc.
While we were sitting there having this disgusting converse, we spotted our friend Joe Fujizo (who is a VERY nice and innocent, VERY Christian young man, as well as being a really buff and gorgeous Hawaiian/Asian bloke to boot) walking toward the cafeteria. Joe was never in a bad mood, always cheerful and positive and sweet, so I felt brave enough to stand up on the bench and yell across the way:
“JOE! WOULDST THOU MOW THE GRASS FOR ME?!?!”
(snicker, chortle, hee!)
without having any idea what I was talking about, Joe – in the first and last foul mood I ever saw him in replied:
“MOW YOUR OWN DAMN GRASS!!!” and walked on into the cafeteria.
Oh, the irony of it all. :)
In that moment, this poem was born, and though it began as a farce, and a play on dumb ole’ love poems, it ended as something entirely different. It is still one of my veryvery favorites (in the top five, prolly) and one of the most bittersweet and ‘tender’ things I have ever written.
Suburban Love Anthem
Would you mow the grass for me,
Or let the long leaves lie
Where heavy summer beetles breed
Beneath a green, candescent sky?
I’ve seen you carefully tend and tune
The mowers’ oily parts
As young lovers tune the emotional gears
Of one anothers’ tender hearts.
In waiting, on the patio,
I watch the mornig shadows pass
And hold my love, ‘guised lemonade,
In a cold, eternal drinking glass.
And as I stand and calmly watch
You part the green, unending sea,
I hope you’ll come, in your respite,
And drink, not from the glass, but me.
***
moo.
-sam
*with the exception of ‘professional poets’, it seems.
** X has written a HILARIOUS comedy act based on that very thing. It’s a little piece he calls “Blah.” When you meet him, or see him again, ask him to do it for you.
Here’s a fun one for you to read out. (I wrote this not too long after I moved here.)
Amputee
This planet was a garden once. That may be the only thing that we can all agree on.
(Except that guy on 7th Street, the one with the tin-foil hat, who thinks
that we are just a cosmic Jr. Food Mart for some higher intelligence.
Maybe he’s right. Maybe we – the Egyptians, or the Masons, or somebody’s rich great-grandpa – sold the rights, or wrote up a 20 million year lease:
“Dino’s Exterminated Free!!! Withsalepurchaseofplanet, taxableinMilkyWayGalaxyat
nominalfeeof42% - Non-negotiable.)
However you look at it, we – biggest brain on the planet
(weeding out the competition daily)
- have turned it into a machine.
One big Willy Wonka factory of delights,
Well designed to … … … what?
Bring us pleasure? Yes, that’s it.
And so we crank up the machine, wind up the toy, streamline our costs, power up,
downscale, become more efficient, micromanage, multi-task, and increase our maximum potential. For … … … what?
To eat, drink, sleep, run, watch tv, immerse ourselves in sound, food, dreams, sex, love, art, babies, sunshine, cats, laundry, death, Oprah, clothes, advice, fear, words, work, skin, pain, exercise, gossip, church, drugs, books, tears, thought, paint, obsession, care, M.A.S.H., serial killing and other natural disasters, meditation, war, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, music, each other, and god, to … … … what?
To distract ourselves from the itch
or the pain
of the place
where our wings used to be.
***
This is another one that I love to read out loud. I seldom write rhyming poetry. I am not a Poet, and so I feel unqualified to dabble in such lofty pursuits as meter. But this little sonnet HAD to rhyme, as I also seldom write Lurve poeems, and the sentiment seemed to call for this form.
There’s also a funny and ironic story behind this piece.
My room mate during my last semester at USM and I were sitting on a bench outside the commons, watching folks come and go outside the cafeteria. We were discussing s-e-x – or actually the lack thereof, and we were using household terms as metaphors. In fact, it started off with Meg talking about the last time there’d been a “car parked in her garage”, and I said “Car, sheesh! I don’t even have a lawn mower in mine!” This of course degenerated into jokes about hiring lawn boys, etc.
While we were sitting there having this disgusting converse, we spotted our friend Joe Fujizo (who is a VERY nice and innocent, VERY Christian young man, as well as being a really buff and gorgeous Hawaiian/Asian bloke to boot) walking toward the cafeteria. Joe was never in a bad mood, always cheerful and positive and sweet, so I felt brave enough to stand up on the bench and yell across the way:
“JOE! WOULDST THOU MOW THE GRASS FOR ME?!?!”
(snicker, chortle, hee!)
without having any idea what I was talking about, Joe – in the first and last foul mood I ever saw him in replied:
“MOW YOUR OWN DAMN GRASS!!!” and walked on into the cafeteria.
Oh, the irony of it all. :)
In that moment, this poem was born, and though it began as a farce, and a play on dumb ole’ love poems, it ended as something entirely different. It is still one of my veryvery favorites (in the top five, prolly) and one of the most bittersweet and ‘tender’ things I have ever written.
Suburban Love Anthem
Would you mow the grass for me,
Or let the long leaves lie
Where heavy summer beetles breed
Beneath a green, candescent sky?
I’ve seen you carefully tend and tune
The mowers’ oily parts
As young lovers tune the emotional gears
Of one anothers’ tender hearts.
In waiting, on the patio,
I watch the mornig shadows pass
And hold my love, ‘guised lemonade,
In a cold, eternal drinking glass.
And as I stand and calmly watch
You part the green, unending sea,
I hope you’ll come, in your respite,
And drink, not from the glass, but me.
***
moo.
-sam
*with the exception of ‘professional poets’, it seems.
** X has written a HILARIOUS comedy act based on that very thing. It’s a little piece he calls “Blah.” When you meet him, or see him again, ask him to do it for you.
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Ok, due to great demand and humongous public hue and cry …
(ok, really due to beloved Andi’s very sweet post to my guest book*)
… I will continue to, uh…’entertain’ you with some of my poems. I will probably post two or three a day until I’ve exhausted my rathah limited supply of printable ones, but fortunately none of my poems are very long (which I suspect is one of the reasons why I am so popular at poetry readings.**)
Alright, I’ll start with something lighter. This first poem was written not long after “Last Stand”. That very same teacher was a big fan of Jimmy Buffet, and similar “home-style” writing. After the ‘Last Stand’ debacle, I decided to try to beat him at his own game. I wrote advice, and he LOVED it. Hmph. How dare he? :) Well, I love it, too. It remains, to this day, one of my very favorites. I am proud of this piece, and always get a great response when I read it publicly.
This is called:
Advice
Here in a summer Delta,
where love wraps ‘round your heart
like a pickled watermelon rind,
a Lady is likely to find her prince –
charming or otherwise –
propped against the bumper
of a stepside GMC.
Life is a funny thing, you’ll find,
at least that’s what the local
Union of Baitshop Philosophers
tell me.
What else is there to believe
in a universe where the weather
is based on the color of the sunset,
and warts can be banished
with the rub of a chicken bone?
“Lookin’ for love
is like chasin’ a greased pig.
Leave it alone,
‘n when it gets hungry enough,
it’ll come lookin’ for you.”
Mamaws know more about love
than any Cosmopolitan magazine,
and in those kitchen-coffee whispers
they’ll be the first to tell you
the most important secret
about Southern love:
“Just like the dust here,
you might have to settle
on what you can find.”
***
And then, to continue the Southern writing theme (oh, Loki’s Little Acre ain’t ded yet!), here is another one that I wrote after I moved here. Of course there’s a story behind it, and it’s not as earth-shakingly tragic as it might have been. I actually wrote this after I thought I’d lost my camera (‘Antonia’)***, but I realized, even as the words started to form in my head, before I’d even found some paper, that it was about SO much more than that. It was about my whole life.
Front Step Psalm
Lord, learning to let go is hard.
To open my hands and release
what may be
the only thing holding me to the ground.
And Lord, why do I love the ground so?
It is as if
I wrap myself around this pain,
like it’s the only thing
keeping me warm at night.
My head is heavy Lord,
and if I let it hang,
then I can see the faces
of those around me,
and embrace the heat of their misery too.
I see that we are all heavy and tired, Lord,
And afraid to hold onto each other if we fall.
Let me be strong,
let me learn to open my hands.
Make me able to fall with grace,
catch me, if you can,
and if you can’t,
then let me learn from it all.
Amen.
***
Ok, there’s today’s Blue-Plate Special. : )
Thanks for reading, and for sending your love.
MUCH of mine,
-Sam
*well, as well as my own bloody-minded, stubborn-@$$ “this is dang well what I dang well wanna do so I’m gunna dang well DO it!” attitude. :D
**I mean, ANYthing sounds good after a 15 minute-long meandering hippie diatribe about ANYthing – ESPECIALLY with intermittent didgeridoo accompaniment. Welcome to The Mountains, folks.
***well, and also not long after I'd found out that nearly every single thing I had in storage had been lost somehow, too. Even my grandma's antique crackerjack toys.
Bastards.
(ok, really due to beloved Andi’s very sweet post to my guest book*)
… I will continue to, uh…’entertain’ you with some of my poems. I will probably post two or three a day until I’ve exhausted my rathah limited supply of printable ones, but fortunately none of my poems are very long (which I suspect is one of the reasons why I am so popular at poetry readings.**)
Alright, I’ll start with something lighter. This first poem was written not long after “Last Stand”. That very same teacher was a big fan of Jimmy Buffet, and similar “home-style” writing. After the ‘Last Stand’ debacle, I decided to try to beat him at his own game. I wrote advice, and he LOVED it. Hmph. How dare he? :) Well, I love it, too. It remains, to this day, one of my very favorites. I am proud of this piece, and always get a great response when I read it publicly.
This is called:
Advice
Here in a summer Delta,
where love wraps ‘round your heart
like a pickled watermelon rind,
a Lady is likely to find her prince –
charming or otherwise –
propped against the bumper
of a stepside GMC.
Life is a funny thing, you’ll find,
at least that’s what the local
Union of Baitshop Philosophers
tell me.
What else is there to believe
in a universe where the weather
is based on the color of the sunset,
and warts can be banished
with the rub of a chicken bone?
“Lookin’ for love
is like chasin’ a greased pig.
Leave it alone,
‘n when it gets hungry enough,
it’ll come lookin’ for you.”
Mamaws know more about love
than any Cosmopolitan magazine,
and in those kitchen-coffee whispers
they’ll be the first to tell you
the most important secret
about Southern love:
“Just like the dust here,
you might have to settle
on what you can find.”
***
And then, to continue the Southern writing theme (oh, Loki’s Little Acre ain’t ded yet!), here is another one that I wrote after I moved here. Of course there’s a story behind it, and it’s not as earth-shakingly tragic as it might have been. I actually wrote this after I thought I’d lost my camera (‘Antonia’)***, but I realized, even as the words started to form in my head, before I’d even found some paper, that it was about SO much more than that. It was about my whole life.
Front Step Psalm
Lord, learning to let go is hard.
To open my hands and release
what may be
the only thing holding me to the ground.
And Lord, why do I love the ground so?
It is as if
I wrap myself around this pain,
like it’s the only thing
keeping me warm at night.
My head is heavy Lord,
and if I let it hang,
then I can see the faces
of those around me,
and embrace the heat of their misery too.
I see that we are all heavy and tired, Lord,
And afraid to hold onto each other if we fall.
Let me be strong,
let me learn to open my hands.
Make me able to fall with grace,
catch me, if you can,
and if you can’t,
then let me learn from it all.
Amen.
***
Ok, there’s today’s Blue-Plate Special. : )
Thanks for reading, and for sending your love.
MUCH of mine,
-Sam
*well, as well as my own bloody-minded, stubborn-@$$ “this is dang well what I dang well wanna do so I’m gunna dang well DO it!” attitude. :D
**I mean, ANYthing sounds good after a 15 minute-long meandering hippie diatribe about ANYthing – ESPECIALLY with intermittent didgeridoo accompaniment. Welcome to The Mountains, folks.
***well, and also not long after I'd found out that nearly every single thing I had in storage had been lost somehow, too. Even my grandma's antique crackerjack toys.
Bastards.
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
Sweet Miss Delia, of the Long Shining Brown Hair*, backseat ZapMama tunes, “Scooping Ice Cream” Hippie-Pants Dance, and brave, empathic defender of my poems in Mr. B_____’s scary-berry Poetry Class, thank you for checking my page every day, and for saying such nice things in my guest book! (Delia isn’t the only one who checks my ‘page daily. Thank y’all for continuing to do so, despite the frequent long gaps between posts of late. Y’all make me want to TRY!)
So, for those of you who do not know:
Delia was a lady who went to school with me at Good Ole’ U.S. of M. Despite my desire to be mad at the world, sad as could be, scared of the new, and of my own big bad self, Delia made me smile and think, made me feel warm, even when I ‘believed’ that the world was just cold. She caused me to challenge my own beliefs and broaden my perspectives in ways that she doesn’t even know about. Delia was one of the people who seemed to really see and hear me, and I never forgot her.
At last year’s faire auditions, I met a young Asheville lady, a poet, and we began to chat. After she’d gotten to know me a bit, she asked if I was interested in contributing some of my poems – many of which (most of which) are about hard times, whether personally or globally, and trying to get through them – to a reading/slam to benefit an abuse awareness group. I told her that I’d written at least one possibly appropriate poem in particular that caused a very strong reaction in my second-year poetry class, and I told her this story:
I’d written this poem about my stepfather’s abuse and about forgiveness. I labored over it, because I knew it had a lot of dangerous (and dangerously trite) emotional content, but it was important to me (and still is). The day that I submitted it to the class for critique was a hard one, and a big step for me as a writer and as a human being.
After I read the poem out loud, the teacher and students were allowed to comment and ask questions. In the first verse are the lines:
“He used to call me “podna”,
when his hands were flat
on the kitchen table
or curled around a beer.
Before the cane poles,
coat hangers,
and axe handles –
and sometimes after.”
Our teacher said that he’d like to ask a question to clarify something before the discussion began. He said – this award-winning poet – said “Ok, I understand that the cane poles are for fishing and the coat hangers are for roasting marshmallows, but what are the axe handles for?”
There was a sickening pause, and then before I could collect myself enough to answer Delia yelled “He BEAT her with those things!”
Needless to say, there were tears and a very intense discussion followed, but after class, Mr. B. held me back and ACTUALLY SUGGESTED that I ‘write about less emotional subjects from now on’. (!!!)
I didn’t listen to him, because I realized that Delia – and some of the others – heard what I was saying and respected me for it. Mr. B. was distressed because I’d gotten his class riled up (and helped him make himself look like MORE than a bit of a Big Dumb Stupid Head**) and that’s what I assumed poetry was all about. Making people feel.
After I finished telling this story to the Asheville poet-friend, she said “Awesome! And by the way, do you remember this ‘Delia’s’ last name?” I said yes, and described her, and she said “Hmmm… I think I knew her in (Wisconsin? One of those cold places, anyway.).” And she went and got her address book and verified that the Universe is a very strange and small and wondrous place indeed! She gave me Delia’s e-mail addy, I wrote, and when Delia returned from her latest wanderlustful adventures, she wrote to me!
So, Miss Delia, for the next few days of posts, I have decided to ‘publish’ some of my poems from over the years, some that you may remember, and some that you’ve never heard. Some are terrible, and some I am really proud of, and some of them are the same poem.
So, y’all all have Delia to blame for The Attack of the Sam Poetry for a few days!***
Thank you, Delia. *kisses!*
I’ll start with the previously excerpted poem, written sometime around 1989.
Last Stand
I can’t watch those old westerns anymore –
“You shot my Pa!”
and stub cheroots.
He used to call me “podna”,
when his hands were flat
on the kitchen table
or curled around a beer.
Before the cane poles,
coat hangers,
and axe handles –
and sometimes after.
Every day,
Squared up at sunset,
twenty paces,
back to back.
Faced at high noon
To show me
With your red, rough hands
How to plant the seeds
That never got to grow.
Nights, lying still
and hiding out
while prayers
against the bruises
and the boogeymen
rose, then settled
in the corners with the dust,
and the teddy-bears,
and my brothers’ one-shot 22.
I rode out
on the last coach.
Back to a real father
and hands that touched faces
with nothing but ‘soft’.
Your last words still ring,
like shining silver spurs –
you never said
“Please forgive me.”
But I did.
***
Ok, and I’ll put a newer one, just so you can all decide if I’ve improved any at all or not… ;) This was written a few years ago for my beloved boys in The Geek Patrol (who all came to the coffee shop to hear me the night I debuted this - Moo!) , and all the Good Guys out there.
A Last Scrap of Faith is My Favor****
For the boys
who wave their flags
and stand for things
that no one else believes in,
who hold the doors,
drop their coats,
and neatly pin their hearts
to their shirts every day;
who know that good guys
never win,
but never waiver,
and look for the princess
sleeping inside every
wicked witch;
for those boys,
the pain of quest
and conviction,
battered armor,
and poisoned apples,
long campaigns,
and cruel magic mirrors.
Please,
fight on,
and know that,
in the darkness,
chained princesses dream of you.
***
'More (if you can stand it!) 'next post!
Much love,
-Sam
*well, it was in those days, though I hear it has changed… J
**Which he really wasn’t, but STILL!
***Don’t be TOO afraid. The Vogons said I SUCKED! ;)
****FYI, a ‘favor’ is an item, a ribbon, handkerchief, or similar, that ladies’ used to give to knights before they went out onto the tourney field, to show that they had faith in them, or ‘favored’ them.
So, for those of you who do not know:
Delia was a lady who went to school with me at Good Ole’ U.S. of M. Despite my desire to be mad at the world, sad as could be, scared of the new, and of my own big bad self, Delia made me smile and think, made me feel warm, even when I ‘believed’ that the world was just cold. She caused me to challenge my own beliefs and broaden my perspectives in ways that she doesn’t even know about. Delia was one of the people who seemed to really see and hear me, and I never forgot her.
At last year’s faire auditions, I met a young Asheville lady, a poet, and we began to chat. After she’d gotten to know me a bit, she asked if I was interested in contributing some of my poems – many of which (most of which) are about hard times, whether personally or globally, and trying to get through them – to a reading/slam to benefit an abuse awareness group. I told her that I’d written at least one possibly appropriate poem in particular that caused a very strong reaction in my second-year poetry class, and I told her this story:
I’d written this poem about my stepfather’s abuse and about forgiveness. I labored over it, because I knew it had a lot of dangerous (and dangerously trite) emotional content, but it was important to me (and still is). The day that I submitted it to the class for critique was a hard one, and a big step for me as a writer and as a human being.
After I read the poem out loud, the teacher and students were allowed to comment and ask questions. In the first verse are the lines:
“He used to call me “podna”,
when his hands were flat
on the kitchen table
or curled around a beer.
Before the cane poles,
coat hangers,
and axe handles –
and sometimes after.”
Our teacher said that he’d like to ask a question to clarify something before the discussion began. He said – this award-winning poet – said “Ok, I understand that the cane poles are for fishing and the coat hangers are for roasting marshmallows, but what are the axe handles for?”
There was a sickening pause, and then before I could collect myself enough to answer Delia yelled “He BEAT her with those things!”
Needless to say, there were tears and a very intense discussion followed, but after class, Mr. B. held me back and ACTUALLY SUGGESTED that I ‘write about less emotional subjects from now on’. (!!!)
I didn’t listen to him, because I realized that Delia – and some of the others – heard what I was saying and respected me for it. Mr. B. was distressed because I’d gotten his class riled up (and helped him make himself look like MORE than a bit of a Big Dumb Stupid Head**) and that’s what I assumed poetry was all about. Making people feel.
After I finished telling this story to the Asheville poet-friend, she said “Awesome! And by the way, do you remember this ‘Delia’s’ last name?” I said yes, and described her, and she said “Hmmm… I think I knew her in (Wisconsin? One of those cold places, anyway.).” And she went and got her address book and verified that the Universe is a very strange and small and wondrous place indeed! She gave me Delia’s e-mail addy, I wrote, and when Delia returned from her latest wanderlustful adventures, she wrote to me!
So, Miss Delia, for the next few days of posts, I have decided to ‘publish’ some of my poems from over the years, some that you may remember, and some that you’ve never heard. Some are terrible, and some I am really proud of, and some of them are the same poem.
So, y’all all have Delia to blame for The Attack of the Sam Poetry for a few days!***
Thank you, Delia. *kisses!*
I’ll start with the previously excerpted poem, written sometime around 1989.
Last Stand
I can’t watch those old westerns anymore –
“You shot my Pa!”
and stub cheroots.
He used to call me “podna”,
when his hands were flat
on the kitchen table
or curled around a beer.
Before the cane poles,
coat hangers,
and axe handles –
and sometimes after.
Every day,
Squared up at sunset,
twenty paces,
back to back.
Faced at high noon
To show me
With your red, rough hands
How to plant the seeds
That never got to grow.
Nights, lying still
and hiding out
while prayers
against the bruises
and the boogeymen
rose, then settled
in the corners with the dust,
and the teddy-bears,
and my brothers’ one-shot 22.
I rode out
on the last coach.
Back to a real father
and hands that touched faces
with nothing but ‘soft’.
Your last words still ring,
like shining silver spurs –
you never said
“Please forgive me.”
But I did.
***
Ok, and I’ll put a newer one, just so you can all decide if I’ve improved any at all or not… ;) This was written a few years ago for my beloved boys in The Geek Patrol (who all came to the coffee shop to hear me the night I debuted this - Moo!) , and all the Good Guys out there.
A Last Scrap of Faith is My Favor****
For the boys
who wave their flags
and stand for things
that no one else believes in,
who hold the doors,
drop their coats,
and neatly pin their hearts
to their shirts every day;
who know that good guys
never win,
but never waiver,
and look for the princess
sleeping inside every
wicked witch;
for those boys,
the pain of quest
and conviction,
battered armor,
and poisoned apples,
long campaigns,
and cruel magic mirrors.
Please,
fight on,
and know that,
in the darkness,
chained princesses dream of you.
***
'More (if you can stand it!) 'next post!
Much love,
-Sam
*well, it was in those days, though I hear it has changed… J
**Which he really wasn’t, but STILL!
***Don’t be TOO afraid. The Vogons said I SUCKED! ;)
****FYI, a ‘favor’ is an item, a ribbon, handkerchief, or similar, that ladies’ used to give to knights before they went out onto the tourney field, to show that they had faith in them, or ‘favored’ them.
