Month: April 2017

Long before the most recent election, we became aware of another turn of phrase, that of people “living in a bubble.” The bubble then was described as social or cultural, and described a “new” upper class that was worlds away from the average White American. And yes: pretty specific. It was more of monetary phrase than anything else, and related to one man’s research about one subset of Americans. Then, the election – all three hundred and seven years of it – wound up, and the conversation became political. We didn’t understand each other. EVERYONE existed, we were told, leagues away from the “average mainstream American.” We were all, it was accused, living in an “elitist bubble.”

Too easy, my common sense argued. Number one, I’m not the average white American – (hello? Remember the original guy’s research?), and number two, what the heck is “average?” I don’t like words like “mainstream,” either. My belief? There’s no such thing.

There were the requisite quizzes to self-identify as a bubbler, but though pundits tried to apply words like “elitist” and “mainstream” and “average” to everyone, it just didn’t stick to me… except in the general way that many people with anxiety or depression feel culpable, bad, or guilty about anything they hear on the news, and wonder, “is it I?” about darn near everything. And so, with my usual inability to differentiate whether or not I am at fault – at least on an emotional level – I, like so many other people who are trying constantly to be better than we’ve been accused to be, try to vary what I read, the media I consume, and the groups with which I discuss it. I still don’t believe in the myth of the average American, as I tend toward a more sociological point of view, which emphasizes diversity, but I am trying to mix it up. Within reason. Here’s to better understanding, I guess.

imploded

our bubble’s popped; let’s go
disperse, break up & scatter
let’s make new friends (&foes
the former more the latter)

to avoid Stepford ways
echoes of lockstep feedback
diversify your days —
make variance your fallback

I was nine the summer I met a new girl whose mother had died of a drug overdose. Everyone, of course, felt terrible for her, and I was matched by the adults in our lives as someone “suitable” to anchor a going-on-fifth-grade girl adrift with a father she’d never lived with, his new family, and a box of Barry Manilow cassette tapes, all she had left of her mother. We didn’t have much to say to each other, at first, this girl and I, but then she showed me her treasures- a small gold necklace with a maybe real diamond chip, a compact of silly blue eyeshadow, and a shoebox full of cassete tapes. We listened to them – she, remembering her mother, and me, finding a whole different world from the hymns and religious songs I knew at home. We listened to those cassettes until we worried they would wear out. So, “Lyn” made me my own set, and made herself another set. And when the golden voice spiked out, we weren’t just two awkward fifth graders, but something better. Something bigger.

Coming to Barry Manilow’s swoopy vocals and sentimental piano ballads before I had the cynical armor of adolescence means I listened and wept real tears to heart-tuggers like “Even Now” and “All the Time” and imagined myriad lives not my own, where people were hurting and enduring, putting away youthful loves and going on – in some cases bitterly, in others, joyously. It was… like reading novels, seriously. I imagined life stories for Lola the Showgirl and Mandy. (Why, yes. Yes. I was a weird kid. I know. I also wrote narrative bubbles in the Sears catalogue. Dialogue practice or weirdness? You Make the Call.)

In time – by junior high, really – there were boy bands and cooler music to be aware of, like Prince. I …quietly pretended to know who George Michael and Boy George was. (And thought Boy G was a girl. FOR YEARS you guys. I was completely clueless: he wore makeup, right? Ergo, girl, right? Oyyyy.) I forsook my first love, and moved on. After all, Choir Nerds like Huey Lewis and the News, right? Vocals. Four-part-harmony, and all that jazz. Every once in a while, we’d arrange a Manilow song for a talent show – what other song lent itself to a soft-shoe routine AND a whistle but “Can’t Smile Without You?” In my dramatic, emo moments, nothing would do but for me to rewind “Could This Be the Magic” over and over and over and over. And of course, every high school choral group worth its salt had to butcher “I Write the Songs.” (!)

In college, my menopausal boss had all of the Manilow on Broadway CDs and the fact that I could sing some of his songs endeared me to her — more than unfairly, I’ll admit, but she was in a cranky, awful place in her life, apt to shriek at her student workers and weep a lot — so I took all the sweetening of her temperament that I could get. Even once I was married, I kept my old cassette tape, though I had nothing to play it on… I knew all the words to all the songs, and at odd times, the lyrics would come back to me — when I was sad and regretful, mostly, but better times, too. I remember belting out One Voice with strangers and friends in Glasgow and tearing up because we were in an auditorium full of people who also sang — Glaswegians are crazy good at knowing all the words to sentimental songs. We sang so loudly we lost our voices – and it was glorious.

When Mr. Manilow came out earlier this month, I felt an upwelling of love for an old friend. In my heart, I hugged him, and promised him that the nine-year-old superfan I was could never be disappointed in someone who taught the world to sing in the darkness. I wrote him a haiku, because… well, because. Because I still know all the words to all the songs, and before I had armor, he broke and re-mended my childish heart.

& every1 will sing

notes under the door
shine a light in through the cracks —
believe in your song

♥

The other day, I read that two strong proponents of the “pull your pants up” doctrine are Rupert Murdoch personality Bill O’Reilly and former television star Bill Cosby. Neither are praiseworthy men for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is because they have made running their mouths a virtue when they should have been running their lives in a manner befitting the privilege they own. No surprise that they share similar views.

However, I, too, though, was raised to believe the doctrine they preached, that of respectability: if you just pull up your pants and look nice and conform to the standard that majority culture has set for you, oh young brown person, All Will Be Well. But, that’s not true. On so, so, so many levels… not true.

Not true – not safe – and communicable – this is a lie that infects like a disease. Tidy, upright behavior doesn’t save lives. Instead, it shifts responsibility for racism from racists, by asking the people being harmed to change. It’s a false security, since believing you’re safe when you’re not always means you’re in more danger. It’s never worked permanently, with everyone, so it doesn’t work. And it asks people to not be who they were created to be. And yet, it persists, getting passed on from parents to children – which is where I got mine.

So, I offer today’s poem in apology to my students throughout the years, with whom I shared what I knew, which was the politics of respectability. I will never tell another student to dress for the life that they wish.* Dress how you will. Live as you should.

Apology, ©2017

Once, I believed and on this point enthused —
That tidy living kept you off the news.
A tidy desk evoked a tidy mind;
Shirts tucked in at the waist looked more benign.
A backwards cap – or sideways! – signaled vice,
Like fishnets, cleavage, short-shorts, fuzzy dice…
(As if correctness covered shaming’s face
“Match purse to shoes, and no one sees your race!”)
Truth: belted trousers will not save a life
Sloppy couture indulged in, once or twice
Will never lead a white child to their grave
It’s not the pants, or how the kid behaves…

To students whom I begged to change their look
And match their outfits with their dream bankbook
I wronged you all: forgive me, if you can.
I’m just now learning clothes don’t make the man.

RANDOM ERRATA: Should my theme of the month have been lies? It seems my poetry finds me there more often than exploring the truth. Obsessed with the dark side, I am. Hmmm. Maybe I’ll find a lighter truth tomorrow.

“I’m fairly tolerant.” “I don’t see color.” “I’m pretty broad-minded.” “I’m the decider.” Because, if you have to say it, it’s likely not true, the previous four statements sound pretty off to me… and yet, they were said by well-intentioned people, and meant to be statements of purest truth.

During my last classroom visit, the teacher in charge made a slightly odd statement, perhaps meant to provoke the students into response. It was a deeply, deeply discomfiting statement, one which began with the statement, “I consider myself a liberal human being…” and ended with the statement that was something like but I didn’t realize black people did yoga. Unfortunately, I thought it was said in jest, and burst out laughing – only to realize no one had joined me. I could only attempt to salvage the moment and talk more in depth about the assumptions people make about people of other abilities, cultures, gender expressions, ethnicities, etc., in our country and in our world that lead to the confusions we share as human beings. It was …a moment.

broad-minded

I don’t see color –
(i’m better than that.) Unseen,
the people waited:
Unacknowledged, their voices.
Unheard, this story’s flip side.

the space between lines
that’s where you’ll find the story
& in the margins
(if you can’t see me, am i
your imaginary friend?)

Somoka is a form where both sides of the poem talk back to each other – and it’s supposed to form a love story. This time, it’s a missed connection…

I hate the phrase, after a national tragedy, an horrible political faux pas, or in the face of people behaving badly in public spaces – at those times, I especially hate the phrase, “this isn’t who we are.” I know that people say it to distance themselves from something, but it makes as much sense as looking at a doughy abdomen or hammertoes and saying, “this isn’t who my body is.” Um, yes… Yes, it is. Your spare tire and crooked toes are a part of the whole, and even the bits of us that we don’t like are still… us.

So, how do we divorce ourselves from the truth of ourselves? We don’t. We own up, and we do better. That’s really the only option open to us, isn’t it? If we’re to be true to ourselves?

“you may experience feelings of momentary discomfort”

“This is not who we are,” good souls profess.
“This brief discomfort heralds changing views.”
The dream, America, is dispossessed.

And politicians wallow in the mess
Eyes rolling wild, while looking for their cues —
“This is not who we are.” Good souls profess

To understand the needs of the oppressed,
Who are not newly pressured, but eschew
The “dream America.” We, dispossessed.

“Just rhetoric and chatter,” pundits stress.
“A bigot’s dreams could never here come true.”
This IS. Not who we are? Good souls, profess!

Resist. Support, with dogged faithfulness
Those who, with courage march. We must push through
the dream and wake. Our country, in distress.

Distracted by your grieving? Reassess
The help you gave when this did not touch you…
This. Is. Not. Who. We. Are. Good souls, protect
The dreamer, wakening, and dispossessed.

In case you can’t read it:
“All Putin got was a lap dog; this guy got a Lab!”

It’s National Poetry Month! And April Fool’s Day. As I looked in complete bewilderment at the Google GNOME, I completely misplaced one of these bits of information… and yes, I was probably the only one who took that seriously and muttered, “What!?”

But, never mind. It’s late afternoon, and my brain has FINALLY caught up. It’s National Poetry Month, and for the past few years, I’ve been doing haiku – but I did that in December, with the theme of healing. I am going to continue to present poetry, but I think instead of sticking with one form, I am going to stick with a poetic theme: truth. Does that just mean things that are true, like facts? Or home truths? Conventional wisdom (or, is that always true)? Or…?

I don’t know yet. But, we’ll find out.

Spring

            By Edna St. Vincent Millay

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

Beauty is not enough, no… but here’s some anyway.