Don't Tell Me

Well, we have a new President.

Obama is now watching the longest fucking parade in history go by his viewer's box. I wonder if he's not tired yet, standing for the past three hours, waving and smiling. Everyone in the viewer's box is GONE. I don't even see the Biden's anymore. It's just Obama and his wife. Wow, that's a lot of stick-to-it-tiveness. I've been sitting here watching it all day once I found a site on the Internet that streamed it live. OH, I see Joe Biden and his wife! They're still there too. God, that must be tiring. I mean, the President is almost my age, but poor Joe Biden is old enough to be a grandfather. Damn if standing up for hours isn't tiring.

Well, the festivities are over. It's funny, I did nothing today but watch it. I fell asleep a little in the middle, during the luncheon, but when the parade started, I was back on my feet. I emailed and IMed too. Other than that, I did goose egg, which is pretty bad. I need to get out and do a little more shopping, get something to drink in the house other than tap water, but I didn't 'want to deal with all of that stupid slush out there. It's just insane. Although they do have some sales on fitted and regular sheets at a nearby store. I could use a set. The sheets that came with the apartment are thin and flimsy. I should really go out and get a set.

I've been a little prolific today too. I wrote a poem concerning something that I dislike and it moves into a further thorny issue that I would like to address. What makes a good poem, and what is a good poet. Hmmm, now think of me, a non-poet. Someone who is far from a poet as one can be. I mean I recently read a poem from a friend who wasn't even trying and she made better verse than I. So what do I know, right? Well, I have two cents, and I would like to pitch them in, because...well, because damnit.

My poem today went like this:

SENSELESS

I think of you
your mouth moving
your words coming out in a
stream

You continue on
tirelessly explaining
your words a constant fountain
of rhetoric

It reminds me of my bed
and the steam pipe passing by
how the air inside
superheated and excited

would bang about

A cling clanging
bing banging
POP POP POW
and I would wonder

could there be some intelligence
trying to send out code? Trying to
reach out to anyone
who would listen?

No, these sounds
no matter how well organized
are a senseless clanging
like the words from your mouth

Well, I wrote this about a college Professor who prefaces his poems, endlessly. Yes, he gives an enormous explanation of his poem before having to read it because it's so involved in his personal view of life that it's completely incomprehensible without his primer. This to me is sad. Because poetry is supposed to be something to be ingested, in my opinion. It should be understood by the person reading it 'personally'. You know what you meant when you wrote it, but it could mean something completely different to someone else. To you, you meant to shore yourself against the assault of your employer, to someone else, it's a love dirge. It could mean something to everyone, and if it means something specifically, it stands on its own to deliver it.

It has it's own legs, so to speak. It can move about on its own without the writer. If the reader has to have an entire page of text just before reading the poem, what are you writing?? Surely not a poem.

Poem.

Part two. In the Inaug- uration today, a poem was read. I won't go on to quote it here, but the web was afire as to how pedestrian it was. Written by another professor, this one from Yale, it seemed rambling to me. "A woman and her son wait for the bus. A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, 'Take out your pencils. Begin.'" I too was expecting something that would knock my socks off, something substantial. I've heard better poetry at the New Year's Marathon at the Bowery Poetry Club. I was not pleased with the Professor and her work. But looking at the web, I'm not the only one.

Poets.

Part three. Professors, degrees and poets. Does it make someone a poet just because they went to college and got a degree from another Poet, who teaches poetry? Can you teach poetry? Well, I say I don't fucking know. I mean, I don't believe someone can walk into a building and come away with a certificate saying that they are a poet. And instantly they are poets, neither do I find some college professors poets. What makes a poet to me are your poems. I had a chance to think about this long and hard and I came to a conclusion. Poems make you a poet, just like art makes you an artist. If you write poems, voila! You're a poet. Now if people happen to like your swill, well that's a different story. I know a poet, who writes a vitriolic stream of bile, and comes to the SHOUT OUT to read it. I consider him a poet, even though his work is for shit and disliked by most. I happen to like some of his work.

And that goes the same for the college professor mentioned earlier. Let's call him Professor X, who prefaces his work endlessly. Not my cup of tea. Swill to me, but loved by someone enough to pay him to teach it to a myriad others. How do you teach poetry?? Today's inaugural poem. Not my cup of tea, and maybe not one to many, but she wrote it, making her a poet, and she read it before millions, meaning somebody liked it. Not necessarily me. Probably Barak Obama. Or President Obama now.

Does that degree makes you a poet? Nope. Your poems do. You didn't need to waste time in college to figure that one out. Keep writing. Like I heard about some drunken sot of a writer, well known, who was asked to come before an auditorium of college kids and address them on being a writer. And drunkenly, he mounted the stage and told them to go home and write. He wasn't far from the truth.

If you're a real poet, go home and write poetry.

If you're a college professor, well...you're a college professor.

If you're me, keep writing swill.

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