Poetry's Enduring Power

If I had a wish, there is one thing that would take precedence over all others. It would outrank, even, my desire to win the lotto, or to spend the night with Adrien Brody and a tub of KY. It would even rate above my fond wish to be a successful working writer.

You see, I'd love to have poetry make a comeback.

Once upon a time, poets were regarded as nothing less than prophets, and their work was heralded as unique, enlightened insights into the very nature of the human experience. Poets were widely-respected, many in the manner of nobility or celebrity, and the work they produced was both emotionally and spiritually lucrative.

But, alas, this is no longer the case. The vast majority of working poets today are forced to make poetry their "hobby", while slaving away at less-enriching jobs to make ends meet. As one of these poets, I am often amazed at how people are able to work 9-5, then go home and be receptive and compassionate enough to write something as sensitive, and fragile, as a poem. I struggle with this. It's rarely -- hardly ever, in fact -- that I am focused and open enough to create a poem after I roll in at the end of the workday. The bulk of my poetry is written on weekends, usually first-thing in the morning. These hours of silence, channeling a voice that echoes, are greatly anticipated throughout the week. When struck by something intensely in my Monday-Friday world, I have sometimes said to myself, "It's OK. You'll think about it this weekend when you sit down to write a poem."

For that's what poetry does for me. It allows me to think in a whole new way. It allows me to frame my thoughts with coherent, deliberate words. Poetry allows me to simply be, in a way that no one or no thing in my life can. It gets all the kinks out, from the crushingly sad to the soaring bliss, in a realistic, honest, original way.

In a contemporary American landscape clotted with reality television that is representative of anything but reality; in a land where the newspapers and all other media outlets are overlorded by the same few people and are unarguably selective about what they tell/show us; in a world where diversion reigns supreme (What's Britney up to this week? What skanky socialite has been arrested this time? What D-list actor is lunching at The Ivy this afternoon?). In a time and place that encompasses all of these, poetry is our last real bastion of truth.

Gone are the days when poets are revered and rewarded. But they are nonetheless important...even more so.

Just as I hope for a massive wave of love and compassion to wash over this country, I also hope for a return to the necessity and knowledge of poetry. I think the two go hand-in-hand. If I had any clout, I'd enlist Oprah's help. She's done some amazing things for literature and reading, bringing whole masses back to the bookstores and libraries. If Oprah took up the poetry cause, the results would be life-changing. She could even start with a show on how to read poetry, since I've found that most people don't even know how to read, and thus appreciate, a poem.

There are still good poets out there. I can name dozens, but you probably won't have heard of any of them. They don't get any media coverage, as they didn't go to an elite Manhattan nightclub last night, or recently bail out of rehab before their commitment was up.

In closing, here is one of my favorite poems....

"The Ponds"
by Mary Oliver

Every year
the lilies
are so perfect
I can hardly believe

their lapped light crowding
the black,
mid-summer ponds.
Nobody could count all of them --

the muskrats swimming
among the pads and the grasses
can reach out
their muscular arms and touch

only so many, they are that
rife and wild.
But what in this world
is perfect?

I bend closer and see
how this one is clearly lopsided --
and that one wears an orange blight --
and this one is a glossy cheek

half nibbled away --
and that one is a slumped purse
full of its own
unstoppable decay.

Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled --
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing --
that the light is everything -- that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

All I Really Need To Know I Learned From "Dynasty"

Lately, my friend Elizabeth and I have been reminiscing romantically about that scion of 80s American television, "Dynasty". Riding high on this "Dynastiness", I just spent an entirely-too-enjoyable 16 minutes on You Tube watching a few of Krystle and Alexis' catfights from the show. Those brawls were always my favorite, and over time they have become "Dynasty"'s enduring legacy.

I watched "Dynasty" religiously. From the ages of nine to thirteen, I thought I was Joan Collins...but that's a topic for another post. When you're an impressionable, bizarre child like I was, "Dynasty" can be a great educator of all life lessons.

Here is what I learned from "Dynasty".

-When depressed, slap on some massive shoulder pads, chunky geometrically-shaped earrings, and a meticulously-feathered coif. Yup. It makes me feel better every time.

-Never resort to violence. Resort to a catfight! It doesn't matter if your heated argument begins in an art studio, beside a mud-caked ravine, or next to a lily pond. You can use any location to suit the needs of your catfight. Pent-up rage is best expressed with sharp slaps to the face, feral scratches, and a lot of hair-pulling. Which brings me to....

-Never leave the house without making sure your wig is super-glued to your scalp. Chances are, if conditions are favorable for a catfight (and really, when aren't they?), that wig will go soaring through the air faster than a peregrine falcon on uppers.

-Before entangling oneself in said catfight, make sure your opponent isn't an Amazon. I never realized, until watching the You Tube clips, that Krystle was a big ol' drag queen and effectively beat Alexis down every chance she got.

-If you're gay, just marry two hot women and hope you suddenly become straight. Steven Carrington, Blake and Alexis' son, was a supposedly-open gay character during an era where we didn't see any openly gay characters on television. However, it was rarely, if ever, discussed. I never even knew Steven was gay until I started research for this post. Steven did, after all, marry twice, to two of the show's most beautiful ladies: Sammy Jo (Heather Locklear) and Claudia Blaisdel (Pamela Bellwood). But his mother was Alexis, and that would turn any man to The Pink Side.

-Extra-Terrestrial life exists. Case in point: Fallon was abducted by aliens in "Dynasty"'s eighth season.

-You might have a half-sibling you didn't even know existed. This is what happened to Blake, who was appalled to learn that his long lost half-sister was the sassy diva Dominique Deveraux. Oh, and she's black too. Le scandale!

-Your servants secretly want one another. The Carrington help, Jeanette the Housekeeper and Gerard the Butler, quietly pined away for each other for years. They finally revealed their secret love when Matthew Blaisdel held everyone hostage in the Carrington mansion.

-If you can't find that special someone, just marry Blake's secretary. Krystle was originally Blake's secretary, and Adam married Dana, who was also Blake's secretary. I wonder what staffing firm he used, and if they charged him more for marrying off their clients.

-I am, alas, not Alexis/Joan. You see, by the end of the series, Alexis has become a fashion designer. And we all know I'm as fashion-retarded as they come. Ugh, now I'm depressed. Where are my shoulder pads....?

An Open Letter to the MBTA, Part II

Dear MBTA,

Today I left work at my usual time and headed for the Mass Ave T Station, as is my routine at the end of the workday. When I arrived, I noticed a gaggle of security personnel blocking the turnstiles and handing out small cards to random people, before these random folks were ushered to a table manned by even more security personnel. This is the precise moment I knew, like the proverbial light bulb over the noggin, what my blog posting would be about today.

You see, in supposed "random" searches by large men in uniform, I'm always selected. I don't really know why. I guess a shaved head and a messenger bag emblazoned with the word VEGAN isn't the image of peace and harmony I thought it was. I must have given a look of subversion, violence, or even terrorism. Yeah, me. Me and the blue-haired lady with holster hips from South Boston who just wanted to get home to watch the Sox opening day on her black-and-white Philco. Somehow, she and I scared the living shit out of you.

How else can I explain being "randomly selected"? As I made my way to the turnstiles, I saw one uniform lean over and whisper to another uniform, clearly something along the lines of, "That one. His walk has too much sashay and he smells too good." An instant later, the uniform that had been instructed to do so approached me, thrust a card in my hand, and said in a bored monotone, "You have been randomly selected for a bag search as part of the MBTA Transit Watch. Please go to the table." He had clearly just memorized this and was terrified of being off script. But that's OK. I don't expect mouth-breather security guards to emote much.

Well, this bugged me. A lot. My train was just arriving, and now I was in a position where I had to defend my basic civil liberties. I just wanted to go home. And everyone knows that MBTA trains don't wait for anyone, even people who are still boarding the train and may get smooshed in the doors.

So as my train chugged out of the station, I placed my bag onto the table in front of the security guard I will call The Polite One. He was very cordial, addressed me as "Sir", and said please and thank-you. This shocked me, as no one associated with your organization knows of even the existence of these words. Yet I was still not altogether happy. I am a law-abiding, tax-paying, voting American, and the contents of my bag are my business. I have nothing to hide. Search my bag and you will find a Diet Pepsi, a pack of Dunhills, and a neatly-folded reusable Whole Foods bag. Hell, give me a urinalysis, colonoscopy, and a pap smear. You'll find nothing.

But the fact remains that what's inside my bag is my stuff.

I needn't have worried about that. The Polite One did not go through my bag. In fact, he didn't even open it. He just ran a little strip of paper across it, then placed the strip in a large contraption that resembled a fax machine from 1982. A few seconds later, he thanked me for my cooperation and sent me on my way.

Excuse me...but WTF???

If there is some sort security threat to the MBTA -- and since these same uniformed men were doing the same exact maneuvers last week at the Mass Ave station, I find a breach of security highly unlikely -- then how does proving that my bag is 100% vinyl help anyone's cause? Other than, of course, the "This Is Boston And We Hate All Of You And Want To Make You Late" clause, which, I think, is on the books somewhere in City Hall.

Clearly, this is some sort of training. But may I suggest something a little less...structured? For instance, I don't think it's the best idea to undertake these lessons during rush hour at one of the busiest T stops in the city. That's just a recipe for, well, a whole lotta letters like this one. Hold your training at the Museum of Fine Arts T stop. It will be much more manageable, I assure you. However, "randomly selecting" oddball artsy types at that station will surely overload your team of security personnel.

Secondly, if there is some sort of security threat, I want to know about it. Whatever it is. I think I, and my fellow passengers, have the right to know exactly what it is that could happen. Had I been let in on the scoop (if there even was a scoop to be privy to), there's no chance I would've boarded one of your Dumpsters-on-wheels and I would've started hoofin' it the three miles home.

Third, why hand me a little card full of bureaucratic threats if you're not going to hand one to everybody? Am I really that scary?

In closing, I want to make you aware that once I was nearing my apartment, I saw an MBTA bus nearly take out a handicapped man using two metal crutches while crossing the street. Apparently, he's pretty scary too.

Hugs and Kisses,
Donn

P.S. I get the distinct feeling that you "red tape" people are just trying to scare us. And let it be known that whoever that terror comes from -- be it those assigned to "protect" us, actual terrorists themselves, or that scary lady who's had too much plastic surgery -- it ain't gonna work. I refuse to be terrorized.