I don’t often find myself in appropriate surroundings for telling my Zen hot dog joke (jokes, plural — ask me about them sometime, if you’re a sucker).
When they’re told in the right places (like California, where this poet presently resides), they score the kind of gratifying burst of hilarity which loosens all our creaky seams
Told in the wrong places, one gets a reaction something like this:
“Ah. Yeah…?”
The last “right” place I’d found, at the time about which we are here writing, had been at a performance of Swami Beyondananda.
For those of you unfamiliar with Swami Beyondananda, you are in for a treat now. Google “Wake up Laughing,” and see what it gets you.
Sean-sean “Squeaky-haid” Powers ~ Mister Misery ~ IS FEELING HIS OATS TONIGHT!!!
“SQUEAK! SQUAWK! EEK! CACK!”
Just WARMING UP for a FUN NIGHT of PERFECTLY LEGAL SLEEP DEPRIVATION TORTURE!!!!!!!!
… It’s typical for a Sunday.
His crime ring re-ups on those “oats” all around, each Sunday afternoon, at their meeting and palaver sessions.
The ones the poet’s been pointing out for the last year.
And being ignored.
They’re probably feeling so secure by now they won’t even move their venue for next week from where they’ve been made comfortable and welcome all this time:
The online crime ring following this poet has succeeded in burning LA and the Texas panhandle, shutting down the Grand Canyon and perpetrating countless acts of outrageous vandalism in between.
Mostly, though, they spend their time ~ harassing defenseless little old ladies like herself…
*****
After Our Explosions
After striding through the wreck Like masked avenging gods Women all will do our beck ~ We’ll have evened up the odds!
To anyone who’s been following this poet’s posts over the last few days it must be very apparent that she has ~ through constant terrorism and, in fact, by definition of the word, torture ~ over these years of struggling to do her literary work under any and all outrageous conditions, reached a very significant state of mental, physical and emotional fatigue.
She’s seen others made far more than fatigued by the program she herself has been targeted with.
Seen them go by her van in condition for sedation and removal ~ and more than just one or two.
Over these last few days, it’s been a real temptation, for her, to just throw the whole public poetry effort right out, baby, bathwater and all.
After all, why not give a society willing to go to that much concentrated effort to express its truly violent desire not to have a poet in its midst what it wants?
Sweet silence.
Simple, right?
It’s been very refreshing, in fact ~ very healing to the poet ~ to take time off from it completely.
After all, she’s got weekends, vacations and holidays, all unused, going back now for seven or eight years over half a dozen sites. Longer, if you count her web book too.
… Why not give her body what it wants also ~ days spent as an aging, disabled person is enabled to live it ~ pretty much effort free, unless that effort is expended in the relaxations and minutia of life?
Yes, it’s been quite a temptation.
One thing has stopped her from doing just that ~ two things, actually.
Two paying subscribers from right here on Substack.
Those good people paid for a year of poetry.
So some sort of balance will have to be found ~ offerings requiring a lower level of energetic investment ~ one which permits this beleaguered poet to continue to offer inspiration and uplift, while at the same time being made fun of, dosed with poisoned air, and deliberately deprived of sleep just at the point of slumber sometimes one hundred times in a night.
So.
Perhaps…
One poem offered each day rather than two. Perhaps only two or three quotations instead of half a dozen. Perhaps somewhat less reading online afterward. But present and contributing for as long as can be managed.
Today the poet received a challenge at which she remains undefeated lifelong ~ the creation of a metrically perfect and thematically cogent Elizabethan sonnet, on the subject of the challenger’s choice, within five to fifteen minutes.
Today she was challenged to write about the concept of being “woke.”
It’s not a word belonging to any frame of reference to which she herself usually adheres ~ not finding, as do most who identify with this word, in its opposite an enemy ~ this poet nonetheless obliged on a literary level, finishing well within the time limit specified.
She can’t think of a better selection with which to begin walking forward in her new balance, then.
Here it is. What shall we call it? Well, how about…
*****
“A New Balance”
We’re woke! The meaning of which is we’ve woke The prevailing illusions of the herd From ~ out the screens of media bespoke ~ Our iron bars created by the Word
Turned to petty advantage, ay, misused, Perverted and inverted, become false, By which by one another we’re abused Into performing the prevailing waltz
Of limitation, sorrow and despair Of desperation in the face of lack Of poisoned water, ground and even air Resources we expect receive not back
From our complacent blind pleasant neglect Despair our planet’s beauty reperfect
*****
The poet/editor of this website is physically disabled, and lives at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level.
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You will live your life being poisoned every day, deprived of sleep at night, showered with hatred everywhere you go, and made fun of every time you move.
… before they burn your city too, they would investigate the comings and goings of each person who throws things at, makes unusual noise beside, or drops litter around the poet’s van.
Very simple logic.
Of course, that would be a little too much like actual police investigation.
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