This is the fifth or sixth version of Wobble. As a poem it pretty well rots. And it keeps getting shorter with each revision… I think because I have found no real connection between the lines I like and the central feeling I am trying to express. Along those lines: I was editing Mad Rush this morning (the piece I wrote about in the last post.) I auditioned it for the Clarice Smith/ PG Parks Showcase last week. Though I didn’t get in, I recommend that event. Always a good show. I’ll be performing Mad Rush at next week’s Dinner Party event at the Warehouse Theater. Please come check it out, and let me know what you think.
Dancers will be able to relate to this poem: it describes my sore feet when I get up in the middle of the night. One of my favorite things about the poem was writing that I get up and wobble like a penguin. It’s an uncomfortable feeling, the foot soreness, and being a penguin all of a sudden always makes me smile.
Wobble
When I wake in the middle of the night you are with me, until I leave,
wobbling like a penguin.
At night we park. At night I dream, wake mad and drive off.
Forget me not maybe is to remember you,
forget the wobble.
Morning music and light I am grace for you.
I wobble.
Copyrighted, aight !??!
I remember when I first read the following poem, by Wilfred Owen (1893-1918.) Owen spent the entirety of his ‘adult’ life fighting in World War I, and died in the final days.
This poem describes being in a gas attack, and watching a friend die in front of him. The phrase Dulce Et Decorum Est, Pro Patria Mori translates roughly as, ‘How sweet and just it is to die for the motherland.’
Dulce Et Decorum Est
By Wilfred Owen
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devils sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, –
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro Patria Mori.
image of Owen and his regiment
In these troubling times, I find myself lost, at times. I may have no idea in a given day what is going on. I may not even care.
Did the market go up? Was there an election?
Is the economy in the tank? Is an elected official in the tank? Is there anyone in a tank on their way to my neighborhood?
Has another war started? Another invasion? Another attack?
I’ve been editing some things I wrote in 2005. I’m not posting any of the longer ones, but in these troubling times thought I’d share something I just un-earthed……
Humanity is a Cactus
Humanity is a cactus.
Humanity survives on little water. Humanity needs sunlight, and there is plenty of it.
Humanity can be very prickly. Sometimes humanity can be eaten, sometimes in can be a balm for
burns, and sometimes it will just prick you, leaving a red welt.
Humanity is a cactus. It is hard to kill. It thrives on very little. It can live almost anywhere – can
tolerate heat and cold. Humanity survives. Humanity is a cactus.
Yes, yes, I know. I sound like I’m eight… whatever.
