Tuesday, February 14, 2006

A poem in the form of an unfair hatchet job after reading the work of Kathleen Wakefield

Yes, it was just one poem, I read, something about grace, birds, bees, the beauty of nature, and the melancholy life of human beings, but it was so insufferably boring and predictable I wanted to throw up. Instead, I imagined myself arguing with her (okay, a monologue) in which I brought out all of my perverse sexual behavior and put it on display, as if to say, Fuck you Kathleen Wakefield! What do you know about grace? I imagined telling her of the tremendous girth a penis acquires at all the wrong times -- when your choking and gagging, or when your ass is impaled, and some idiot's thrusting, not at all delicately, in the wrong place. But it would be wrong to make such complaints about her life after reading one single poem, and so I demurred, being fair-minded and all that, so-called, jazz we tell ourselves corresponds to the word, decency. But it wasn't her poem that changed my mind -- no, not her verse, so clean and precisely verbose, eloquent to excess, no line break untweaked. It was the crass grab for my attention made by TV announcers broadcasting the past in prime time for their advertisers. Just four silly skaters, two pairs, dancing on ice while the world burned beneath them. One woman, one man, competitive equals in suffering, trying to overcome flaws that threatened each of their universes. The man, for his guilt at having dropped his partner's pale face on the ice two years ago, almost quitting the sport but gutting it out, all for her to have a chance at the gold . . . And the woman, who fell yesterday afternoon, after being spun too far around by the two strong arms of her partner, crashing to her knees in distress at having failed. Nonetheless, still getting up despite the pain she so clearly felt in her knees, in her mind. One strong, one frail in appearance, both lost to themselves, to their persistence in conquering fears, conquering fate, finishing their programs, falling down to the ice at the end, in humility, in tears, in sheer goddamned relief. Isn't that grace?

9 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Congratulations for making it to the top ten show.

http://didimenendez.blogspot.com/

Didi Duda

9:08 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Tara,

Just wanted to say that I really enjoyed the poem on your blog.

sicerely,

john dorsey
archerevans@yahoo.com

7:41 AM  
Blogger Tara said...

Thank you both very much.

t

10:29 AM  
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