*****

Recorded Reading (8:17): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/h0kg4ehma8shixtcpqf1z/Problems-With-Poetry-in-Motion.mp3?rlkey=6ue4oqane1yjih0lz5r95rpdl&dl=0

*****

Problems With Poetry in Motion

I see the accusation in your eyes
Each time you deign to give me half a glance,
The which arrests, imprisons, and then tries
This poet, whose defence hath not the chance

You would give any peer of yours, if e’er
You were confused their well meant actions by —
Poisonous human leaning everywhere:
Others to place beneath themselves to try

Congratulate yourself upon “humility”
Which but lack of imagination be —
And by this grievous disability
No quantity of beauty may you see

Without labeling it wasteful, bad and wrong —
Say you that in fine art no value be?
My presence in this colorful sarong
Less beautiful than stiff statuary?

The music of the laughter you’ve foregone
In favor of acceptability
My playful attitude, sine qua non
Of every entertainment that you see

In leisure moments — only to condemn,
After the stars have drifted from your eyes,
Recovering your equilibrium,
What made their authors witty, deep and wise?

From my pelisse, but lightly trimmed with fur
(Which I wear better than you ever might)
Your limited thought processes infer
That money cannot nearly be as tight

In my world as it has been in your own?
Think from my smile that I am frivolous?
Never yet to maturity have grown,
And earn such fripperies in scandalous

And immoral behaviors — nor should I
Ever accept of charity again
If I insist on pleasing every eye
As you create in that same eye a wen?

You look back on the hard and thankless work
It took to build your quality of life,
The patient toil which you refused to shirk
On the behalf of husband or of wife,

And on behalf the little children of
Throughout their growing years must ever look
To your strong arms for sustenance and love
No matter how much dedication took

I give you credit for self sacrifice —
You wear it on your sweater like a badge,
But haven’t bothered your head to think twice
What kind of life a poet has to cadge

For clearly you could always do it too
Pen masterpieces your spare moments in?
Okay — let’s see you write me something new —
Why, can’t you even manage to begin?

You contemplate the so pleasing cliche
A chilly-fingered starving artist of
Trembling on her scratchy bed of hay
Some sleazy tavern doubtless perched above

That doesn’t count as hardship with you, huh?
No dedication pictured in the glow
Of that iconic single candle a
Bohemian can best expect to know?

Those hungry nights in your eyes don’t exist,
Those loads to carry till the back near break,
Of hardships that excruciating list
No warmth from your cold sympathy might take

Because I go to more than only where
I’ve gone before a hundred dozen time,
Found the pelisse hanging luckily there
For such low price ’twere practic’ly a crime

I could not buy it then, for even so
Must save my money for seven more weeks
Before with the collected pennies go
Buy that o’er which your loud suspicion speaks

Yet, with all that, I only spent about
The selfsame and identical amount
That you yourself unwisely did dish out
For that plain piece of knit your shoulders mount

Those who self-determine suffer through
More agonies than you can ever know
As unprotected, with resources few,
We through this unforgiving culture go

Reminding all of beauty all the while
Of its profound uplifting quality
Despite the endlessly corrosive bile
Sent to its back by those no beauty see

It’s for the children we work also, for
Generations to follow in our way —
We share the vision, e’er our eyes before,
Of a more joyful and forgiving day

And it’s for you — your grudging moments of
Leisure and relaxation — that we write,
To spur you to fulfillment of deep love
Brief moments spent in unfettered delight

Say, if you bring a drink my table to
In the pursuit of your selected job
Do I then callously belittle you
And insults at your tacky nylon lob?

No, I do not — I thank you with a smile,
Bestow on you a glance sympathy of,
Complaining not if made to wait a while
Attempting not to put myself above

You in the slightest way at all —
Why might it be that you feel justified
Insinuating from virtue I fall,
My habit oh so scornfully deride?

I’ll bet you call yourself a Christian, too,
Ignoring every tenet in that creed
Which cautions ‘gainst imagining that you
To any be superior indeed

For I assure you — if I did as you
Tell to your friends that I so surely must,
Sell my affections wealthy comers to
To slake my shallow endless venal lust

And to procure this second-hand array
One tenth the cost of yours, and maybe less —
You may believe, if I accepted pay
Such a prosperity my life would bless

‘Twould take me well outside your circle of
This tawdry celebration of the plain
Unornamented function, far above
This shortage, insecurity and pain

Which you see as a spur wrongdoing to
And I see but as dedication’s price —
You see as unexamined and undue,
Achieving condemnation in a trice

Not for unkindness nor for violence
Not for unfairness very like your own
But only for a touch of elegance —
More than world hunger, such you will bemoan

But underneath, with and behind your loud
Glorifying mediocrity
Lurks o’er your head a tell-tale little cloud
Of base self-serving petty jealousy

It isn’t honest work made you so plain
For I have worked hard as you ever do
And don’t give me that hackneyed old refrain
That Mother Nature did not well by you

No small child uglier than I was made
If you have not more beautiful become
As life progressed, you have that beauty paid
Running your true inspiration from,

Compromising accommodation in
Your own short term convenience unto,
Careful no slightest censure to begin,
Giving up anything unique that you

Might with a freer heart have gifted all,
As I do with my art and with my word —
Your beauty faded as a little doll
Manipulated by the mundane herd

Into accepting that uniquenesses
Should not be tolerated hereamong,
And every single one of us should dress
In sweaters as that one upon you hung

Somehow preferable, through ugliness
Of color, cut, nor any hint of style,
On you acceptability to bless —
Though it has taken, far away, your smile

*****

This poet presently lives at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level.

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