A bat cannot get in your hair
if with precaution you prepare.
The same cannot be said of those
who want their pipe dreams to expose
on TV and the internet;
for in your hair they'll surely get.
I'd rather have a bat encased
upon my head than be disgraced
by all the schizophrenics who
are currently on public view.
*************************************
Dan Kelly, who describes himself on Reedsy as a 'Fastidious editor; Husband; Father; Golfer; Sports nut; Cat fancier; Harvard grad; and Most interested in Fact, but comfortable with Fiction,' used to be a great friend and mentor of mine. I first emailed him a poem back in 1999, which he immediately published in the Saint Paul Pioneer Press with great enthusiasm. For many years he would publish nearly everything I sent him in his Bulletin Board column, praising and editing my work in a very friendly and supportive fashion. In fact, he pressed me most urgently to compile my work into a book of poetry, and a book of memoirs. For a long time I demurred, not wanting to bother with the tedium of compilation and the boredom of reviewing and editing my own work. Once I write something and it posts I can't bear to go back and look at it.
Then, several years ago, he took a buyout and retired, and his attitude towards me turned mean and petty. When the New York Times ran a profile on me three years ago he was miffed that his name was not mentioned in the article -- though I repeatedly remarked to the NYT reporter, Rachel Abrams, how grateful I am to Dan Kelly for his staunch support over the years. When I finally managed to bring out a book of poetry I dedicated it to him. I sent him a copy, which he did not acknowledge except to say he would not plug it on his own blog because it was too political.
I've been sending him copies of this work ever since I started it ten days ago. He finally had enough of it, emailing me this morning thus:
Honestly, and meaning no offense, I can't understand why you are pursuing this!
There was a time, not so long ago, when such a reply from someone whose judgement and friendship I trusted and valued would have devastated me. But I found his rejection, perhaps even willful incomprehension, of my work to be not at all emotionally crippling. Rather, it settles me further in my resolve to continue with it. For one thing, as I told him in my reply, I want to find out if an artist can give meaning to meaningless banality -- which, admittedly, abounds in this narrative to a generous extent. And I assured him he would not get any further installments.
And I assure all my friends and family who are receiving this work that if they would like to stop seeing it I will not be offended or turn nasty on them. (On the other hand, I will feel no compunction in sharing with them the award money from the Nobel Prize for Literature when it comes my way.)
(Sidebar: Can a restraining order be issued for a literary work? You know; it is not allowed within a hundred miles of a library or university or something?)
Getting back to the surprising meanness and pettiness that developed in my old editor friend, I am reminded of what happened between my mother and her oldest friend Helen.
Helen and mom were neighbors for over forty years. They went from being young housewives with nettlesome children underfoot, and unreliable husbands, to battle-hardened matrons who had managed to hold on to their sanity and savings accounts so they could take Caribbean cruises together. They knew each other's business to the nth degree. But then when mom decided to sell her house on 19th Avenue to move into a Senior apartment she didn't tell Helen about it. She told me not to tell Helen about it.
"Why not" I asked her.
"Oh, that Helen" she replied waspishly, "she's been poking her nose into my business since forever, and I'm tired of it. This'll teach her a lesson!" I shrugged my shoulders and complied with her request.
Helen didn't find out until the moving van showed up at the front curb. She bustled right over to demand what was happening. When mom told her she looked like she had swallowed a spider, turned around, and went back into her house, where she pulled down the shades. They never spoke to each other again, and Helen was not at my mother's funeral several years later.
How to explain such pettiness? I cannot. But I worry that I am prone to that same kind of picayune malice. I am hoping the study and writing of poetry, and the composing of this extended piece of nonsense, will have a mitigating effect on my incipient sourness. Also, I now understand much better why the scriptures often speak of 'enduring to the end.' If I wind up a mean old man I'm going to go to hell when I die, no doubt about it. Me for a happy and foolish and affectionate old age!
****************************************************************
I'm asking friends to take photos of people holding my poetry book, so I can post them on social media. Here's what my friend out in the Pacific reported to me today about trying to help me out:
As I was leaving for work there was a guy passing our house exercising. He goes by often. He always wears the most bright colors imaginable, and he's kind of a Rastafari guy with dreadlocks and all. I've spoken with him before. He is a psychiatrist, I think, helping the poor people. He'd had an accident and so he walks rather than runs, for his exercise. He would have made an excellent backdrop for someone holding your book. I asked him if he would. He paused for a minute, looking at the book and said "No thank you." I was terribly embarrassed.
He did manage to get some nice photos of my book with some interesting objects. He's a good egg, he is:
**************************************
4:49 p.m.
After lunch I took the 850 bus down to Deseret Industries on Columbia Lane. Seated in the front row, I was hurled to the filthy floor when the driver stomped on the brakes to avoid back ending an idiot Camry driver who switched lanes without signaling. It took four people to pry me loose from the wads of gum and other unspeakable adhesives on the black bus floor. The driver asked if I were hurt.
"Only my dignity, son" I snarled back at him in my best W.C. Fields mutter.
While not personally funny to me (not yet, anyways), I recognize this incident as the comic highlight of my day. Because the sudden loss of dignity is the keystone of all comedy. Now that I'm back safe and sound at home, soaking my tootsies in a warm baking soda bath, I can speculate at leisure on this dynamic of human existence. When a man loses his dignity little by little, that's a tragedy. But when dignity goes all at once, as in a pratfall, that's the ripest form of comedy there is. Placed in that context, Lucifer's fall from the Celestial Heights was the greatest comic performance ever wrought by man or angels. Strange, how John Milton missed that aspect of it. I always thought he had it on the ball. Oh well, better luck next time Johnny.
I enjoyed my session of subtraction shopping at the DI. I gathered a paperback Agatha Christie whodunit for 75 cents in my cart; a blue paisley bandana for a dollar; a basting brush, also a dollar; and a set of superannuated steak knifes for two-fifty. I'm always a bit leery around the utensils bin at DI -- there are some mighty strange looking customers handling the knives and giggling nervously --
Then I took my cart over to the furniture section to sit in a lumpy recliner (selling for twenty five bucks) to start my subtraction shopping. First I decided I really didn't need another bandana -- I've got a dozen of 'em already. Next I gave the basting brush the old heave ho -- after all, how often do I roast anything that needs basting? I mean, I'd like to roast a turkey once in a while and baste it with melted butter every half hour like my mother did -- but my kids have grilled salmon and quinoa salad for Thanksgiving. They'd turn up their organic noses at a chemically suspect gobbler. Too many steroids and antibiotics. Phooey.
Anywho. The Christie went next; I'd seen the movie. And last of all the steak knives went back in their bin -- I probably will not buy and cook and eat another steak for the rest of my life. Steak sits in my gut like a block of cement, digesting slower than an Entmoot.
So I left DI just as I had entered it -- and not a penny poorer. In their bathroom I was struck once again with how pleasant and soothing the perfume of their hand soap is. I can't identify the scent. It's not lavender or patchouli or ylang ylang -- and it isn't the same scent the Church uses for hand soap in their ward and stake buildings. If I could soak in a warm tub with that DI hand soap scent swirling around me I believe I could transcend to the next Plane of Existence (or maybe even reach Disneyland!)
************************************
three colors waving
supporting each other now
and forever -- please
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