Read Write Poem lalalalalalalalalalia

Dana asked me a few weeks back to write a Thursday prompt for Read Write Poem sometime. Lucky for her, I was at a moment of extreme incredulity about the myriad ways in which Sara Palin and her pals manage to buck, dodge and straight up not answer questions posed to her for the benefit of the American public she says she’s so gosh darn “down” with. I was trying to think of ways in which my pain might be eased by poetry. Plus, Dana had just written this poem with the word glossolalia in it and ding! a lightbulb went off as I remembered the word echolalia, a poem I had written with that word in it (in this collection, get it!), and thought, how relevant! Of course I’ll write a prompt!

I had been particularly incredulous for a number of days including and following VP Debate day because Palin’s tactics at the debate were all kinds of everything but “straight talk,” and now, their campaign has moved on to downright violent prevarication. I just want to know what you are gonna do in office, not what bad things this other guy did a million years ago (or not, as 99% of the slurry they’re shooting is fabricated. Like Chicken McNuggets^TM (you’ll be pleased to know when I first wrote that out I typo-ed chicken McChubbgets. Ain’t that the truth!)

They have refused to tell us their plan (do they have one?) and they refuse to answer questions, and they refuse to stay focused on the topics. So I think it is therefore safe to say, in lieu of having any clear cut explanation of what they will do if elected – what they are doing now is what they will do if elected. A whole lot of mudslinging and nothing much more.

The point here is: how do we not get swallowed whole by the vomitory of punditry, circuitous talk, and pure evil out there? Not to mention rising unemployment rates, rising inflation, endless war…Poetry! Now is not the time to use our collective agony as an excuse to rest on our laurels. Now is when we should be writing more poetry than ever! Flooding the market with poetry because the simple act of writing it – well, the simple act changes the world. And besides, without poetry, the activists and politicians and change agents trying to inspire people would have nothing to quote.

When have you ever seen poetry used for evil (aside of rhyming curses or devil conjurings – and that’s even debatable, because it depends on your definition of evil)? Not often. So the prompt is a way to inspire us not only to take our souls back from the immobilization of our anguish, but to also speak powerful words, truthful words and generally, to just get more poetry out there in the world!

So I thank you in advance for playing, and invite you to read my contribution below!

The following poem was written for my good pal Sheri and I read it on her wedding day. When I read it now, it seems a bit complicated and wrought for an Epithalamium, but people seemed to accept…so.

Arriving There

The Law says when two bodies
meet they are annihilated

but only one death
is instant, gathers

its belongings and goes
unremorsefully. You rise

daily, in search of perfect pitch,
the height from which gravipause

and lovers can be breached,
awakened by the shrill of the 8:23

and the now-dry canyons
once filled with echolalia

another flake of skin lost
to the prior night’s arpeggio:

this is the other death,
the slow lonely molt

until there is no body left
to speak of, soul cast

into the nice-but-not
heaven where you roam

with other love-lapsed Ancients
whose only fault is nescience.

Tags: election 2008, mudslinging, palin, poetry, poetry writing, read write poem, slurry