Bus and Subway, Sluggish Transit, Numb Commute

I rode buses quite a lot in Germany and Sweden, have taken trains in Europe and the U.S.A., have used the subway in San Francisco, London, Paris, Barcelona, Berlin, and elsewhere, have taken commuter buses in Sacramento and Seattle. I've taken the infamous Greyhound bus a few times. The collective fatigue created by such slow mass-transit seems similar everywhere, workers and professionals hauled like so much freight. The weariness of industrial society seems distilled on such conveyances, on the platforms, escalators, stairs, in the echoing passageways. Of course, there's always the possibility that something exciting might happen--but that would be bad news in almost every case.

Once I got off a lightly populated London-Underground train at a main station, and suddenly, coming toward me, were hundreds of football (soccer fans), almost all young, male, rowdy, loud, and drunk--even though they were going to, not coming from, a match. I felt like one fish swimming in the wrong direction, schools of fish swimming toward me. Except these were humans, not fish, and their bodies were preceded by their noise. Finding a wall right-quick seemed the thing to do, so I did, and the mass of amped-up humanity passed and filtered onto trains. I did get a whiff, though, of that mob-mentality that can go wrong so quickly. The more common collective affect, if not mentality, of the commuting masses is perhaps more telling about us as a species, however, than that dangerous potential quickening of mob-thought.

Frustration Station

At Frustration Station, crates
of bad karma get off-loaded,
vats of bile sit in storage, and
tickets turn to paste. Conductors
have called a halt. Engineers
weep, and tunnels belch hot wind
recirculated from the 1930s.
Departures and arrivals melt
into one immobile blob. Turnstiles
turn into chrome gun-barrels aimed
at one another. Vermin gnaw
the wires of ambition. Only the fiddler
playing for oily coins puts on
a cheery, sticky smile.
These faces, these faces, these
faces twist toward scream.

Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom

Acquaintances Are Not Friends

A long time ago, I had a residency at a so-called "arts colony" named Ragdale, north of Chicago, in Lake Forest. The owner of the property, which featured a large house and a couple of smaller houses, as well as original prairie-pasture, had turned it into a non-profit "colony" that artists could apply to visit from one week to a month or more in order to write, paint, sculpt, and so on. Of course, it's heavenly to go to such a place, devote oneself to one's writing (in my case), and to talk with other artists. There was a kitchen where you took care of your own breakfast and lunch needs, and then in the evening, there was a casual, communal dinner cooked by an employee. Lake Forest itself is an extremely wealthy suburb of Chicago, so when you walked into town, you were immediately identified as Not From Around Here. I kept in touch for a while with some of the people I met there, but I became friends with none of them, nor did I expect to do so. It was pleasant to be around them, but it was just business (that is to say, art): the idea was to get some work done while you were there. Such places are, naturally, also renowned for their assignations, their artistic soap operas, especially the more famous writers' colonies in the East. Ragdale, at least at that time, tried to identify itself and its ethos a bit differently. It tended to encourage the work, not the extra-curricular activities. In any event, I hunkered down in my room--and I had a great one: one of the large spaces on the second floor of the larger house. I'm sure a few of the residents got to know each other very well, but I minded my own business.

Later I visited Chicago for a conference, and by chance I ran into a woman whom I'd met at Ragdale. We'd been mere acquaintances. We'd spoken a few times at the communal dinners. I think she was a painter, and I think she actually lived in Chicago. When we ran into each other at the Art Institute in Chicago, I had the sense she was a bit down on her luck. I'd seen the exhibit I'd wanted to see and was heading for the museum-cafe, so I asked her if she wanted to join me for a bite to eat. She actually looked hungry, as if maybe she hadn't eaten breakfast that day, as if maybe she were out of work. She accepted the invitation, but very warily, and I didn't and don't begrudge her wariness.

That sort of interaction between acquaintances is actually quite complicated, for myriad reasons, and the usual reasons were complicated by the fact that I was allegedly doing her a good turn by offering to buy her a meal. Of course, she was rightly wary of the possibility that I might be doing more than a good turn, and I was hoping not to appear to want to do anything more than a good turn. (Good grief, this is the sort of over-thinking you find in a Henry James novel.) On the surface, it was a coincidental meeting of acquaintances; but of course there were all sorts of calculations and concerns operating under the surface. This poem came from that experience.

Wanting Nothing Is Impossible

At the Art Institute, an acquaintance
encountered me. We talked easily
enough. I offered to buy us something
to eat, museum café. She accepted.

Younger than I, she had lived a lot
already. I sensed she was broke—
nothing obvious; intuition.
With coffee and food, we talked

more. I said I was
glad we had run into each other.
It was true. Happenstance
had pleased me. Her

face changed. Maybe apparitions
of men she’d known had suddenly appeared
around the table. Maybe she couldn’t
recall a single social interaction

in which someone but especially
men had not seemed
to want too much from her.
I sensed she was broke. I saw she

thought she saw me wanting something.
It’s true. I wanted her to finish her
coffee and say, “Nice to see you,”
and then leave. I wanted to say,

“Nice to see you,” and leave.
Soon we said phrases like that. Her
face kept its wariness. Her
experience had put her on alert.

We left the café and parted.
Can the pronoun “he” ever
want nothing from the pronoun “her”?
Certainly, in theory. My acquaintance

did not live in theory. Her life
was composed of constant practice.
Insistent apparitions had sat at table.
I sensed she was broke. Now I hope

she’s not broke, that she’s
better and well, that her art has come along.
Well, when I think of her that day,
I sense I’m briefly sad for

simple meetings troubled
in Chicago, not to mention
everywhere. I am a ghost at
a café table in the Art Institute

looking at her guarded face. I want
to say, “I don’t want anything. Just
enjoy the hot coffee, the warm food, the rest.”
Her face says, “If you say that,

then you do want something. You
want me to believe you, and believe the rest.
That isn't possible for me. I have had
to take care of myself. Thank you and goodbye."

Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom

What To Do With An Old To-Do List?

A "found poem," as we know, is one in which the poet takes existing language from its original context and arranges it into a poem. Words from labels on food jars; instructions posted in an elevator; a note someone dropped--these sorts of things. A poet can also be more aggressive and use the "found" text as a starting place, the way a jazz musician might take a well known musical-phrase and then improvise like crazy.

Another kind of found poem is a poem you forgot you wrote; you find it in an old notebook or in an old computer-file. The following poem is a found poem in all of these ways. It starts with found language and meditates on it. But it's also a poem I'd forgotten I wrote, maybe for good reason. (The poem notwithstanding, and it probably won't withstand much, the concept of "To-Do" lists fascinates, for one is writing orders to oneself. Now that electronics are allegedly replacing paper, do people leave To-Do lists to themselves on voice-mail, and do they then delete the voice-mail in a fit of self-rebellion? Do they write To-Do lists on Blackberries? [What is a Blackberry? I'm still not sure, and yes, I know I'm a Luddite.] Do they send themselves To-Do emails or instant To-DO messages? A massive compendium of To-Do lists, taken from around the globe on a given day, might be interesting to examine.)

The Author of a To-Do List Discovers It a Decade Later

Pack.
Get money.
Make sauce.
Got to school.
Organize greenhouse.
Move stuff into drawer.
Get fish.

He never liked to pack luggage--
a tedious, sad task. No doubt money
was gotten then released into a variety
of shops--into the world, the air.

(Sauce?) Noting, at age six, that School
was outfitted with drinking fountains
and free books, he has been going
there his whole life; nonetheless, reminders
to return are not unwelcome. (Sauce?)

Regarding the greenhouse, he remains
perplexed but seems to recall encouraging
plants to unionize. . . . Probably stuff
remains in a drawer, which, like certain
ancient cities, has been lost. Salmon

or halibut, which is nobler? That is not
the question. The question is: Sauce?
Was it connected to getting the fish, or
to getting the money, neither, or both?
Was the sauce, in fact, made, or does it
remain packed in a Platonic suitcase of unmixed

ingredients? Did the sauce by chance
or design end up in the drawer, at school,
on money, or in the greenhouse? The older
the To-Do List, the more
uselessly beautiful it becomes. He goes now
to get money so that he may continue
to list what to do. He goes now to list; and to do.

Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom

"Spirit-Wine, A Way of Happening, A Mouth"

Paul Laurence Dunbar was arguably the first Modern African American poet, and it's generally agreed that he was the first African American poet to gain national prominence, partly through poems written in "dialect, " Lyrics of Lowly Life, but also through such excellent non-dialect poems as "We Wear The Mask," which tends to be the one most anthologized now, and deservedly so. It's a terrific poem. In the following poem (far less well known than "We Wear the Mask"), "The Choice," Dunbar (1872-1906) expresses a poet's (guilty?) pleasure over liking "songs"--or the play of words--better than solemn verses that have something to teach, something worth learning:



The Choice



by Paul Laurence Dunbar



THEY please me not--these solemn songs

That hint of sermons covered up.

'Tis true the world should heed its wrongs,

But in a poem let me sup,



Not simples brewed to cure or ease

Humanity's confessed disease,

But the spirit-wine of a singing line,

Or a dew-drop in a honey cup!



I really like the move of turning "simple" into a noun and making it plural--and inducing it to refer to sententious bits of wisdom, bromides. I also like the way he sticks with iambic tetrameter meter up until line six, when he shifts to the more "danceable," so to speak, anapestic (more or less) meter; at any rate, the poem breaks loose in a little dance there at the end.



W.H. Auden, who in poetry played with language in what seems like innumerable ways, came at the issue of what poetry is, does, or is able to do from a different angle in his elegy, "In Memory of W.B. Yeats." Auden writes,



[...]For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives

In the valley of its making where executives

Would never want to tamper, flows on south

From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,

Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,

A way of happening, a mouth.





Poetry for Auden is, momentarily at least, "a mouth," one that drinks what Dunbar calls "the spirit-wine of a singing line," and spirit-wine of a singing line is just such a line, the kind one likes to savor, say, and hear. Poetry makes poetry happen; that's about all we know for sure about poetry, even if we think we know other things about it, even if we expect more from it, and even if we imagine that it can make something (besides itself) happen.

Ignore Winter; Look Ahead to Spring

Although I may have given up gardening, or so I claim, I have retained the gardener's habit of thinking past Winter ahead to Spring. Of course there's work to do in a garden during Winter, but it's not glamorous, so we won't go into that. . . .All across the Northern Hemisphere, gardeners are beginning to receive seed- and plant-catalogs in the mail, and they are reading them greedily. What actually springs eternal is the idea that next year, you'll be able to grow that thing you've never been able to grow. For me, it was asparagus. I never got the hang of it. I wasn't very good at strawberries, either. Raspberries, yes. I often recommend potatoes and (green) onions to those beginning to garden. Potatoes are somehow friendly. They do fine in poor soil and just need some water and some light (and potassium if you have some around); when the tops go bad, it's time to harvest, but especially in moderate climates, you can just leave the spuds in the ground until you need. Digging them up is like a little treasure-hunt, too. Potatoes are also very secretive, of course, like spies. I prefer the variety (of spuds, not spies) known as Yukon gold. Green onions are great because all they do is grow. They never complain, and they never get sick. You plant them, and you water them. You can also start them in the greenhouse or inside, of course. Easy crops are good for the gardener's soul and also for the gardener's soups and stews.

With Emily Dickinson's help, let's look ahead to Spring and not reward Winter for its bad behavior by noticing its bad behavior. Her poem:

EW feet within my garden go,

New fingers stir the sod;

A troubadour upon the elm

Betrays the solitude.

New children play upon the green,

New weary sleep below;

And still the pensive spring returns,

And still the punctual snow!

--Emily Dickinson


I read this one as an early-spring poem, with all sorts of creatures visiting the garden and with the troubadour (just flew in from Canada, and gee, are his wings tired) in the elm. The children are just children, I think: sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. "New weary" is interesting. I reckon if you are dead, then there's a certain sense in which you are weary--completely out of energy. Is spring pensive? In a way. It broods. Is snow punctual? Hmmm. Mercurial Ms. Dickinson.

Here's a short poem about Spring; it doesn't quite hide a disdain for politicians.

April Primary

Winter’s filibuster fades to mumbles.
The delegates are nominating Spring,
signifying their favor by piercing
soil with green digits. Birds work
the precincts, natural politicians:

quick with impromptu speeches,
always groomed, crisply garbed,
well coiffed. I support Spring. I think
it has a lot of good ideas.

Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom

"Green digits" came from watching gladiola and iris leaves break through the soil. They really are blade-like, and it does seem (to one former gardener) as if they're signifying "Aye," in favor of a motion for Spring to take over again, to preside over things.

On Not Missing Gardening

I first planted radishes when I was about 8, I think. Radishes always grow when you plant them, but often the tops rocket up (going "to seed") without forming a globe under the ground, and often some little worm eats the radish before you pick it. Truth to tell, radishes are more trouble than they're worth, from a gardener's perspective.



I've been (or I had been) a semi-serious gardener for the last 25 years, and at our most recent abode, we had the whole enchilada: raspberry patch, greenhouse, herb garden, herbs in containers, flower-garden, rose-garden, interesting hedges, peonies, rhododendrons, a camellia, a smoke-tree, and yadda-yadda-yadda. Actually, way back when, the landscaping was designed by a regionally famous garden-guy, who lived there. But we just sold the place, and I gave up gardening, quit the habit, cold. With no regrets, no jonesing to plant or tend anything. It was great while it lasted, and I was as into composting and fighting various fungi as much as the next mildly insane gardener is. But I'd had my fill. Now I associate gardening with what other non-gardeners associate it with: work.



One of those uncanny coincidences: In our last summer at that place and for the first time in my life, I saw rhubarb go to seed. The plant shot some stems up that flowered. It had never done that in all the years we were there, and I'd never seen anyone else's rhubarb go to seed.



So I've given up gardening. Except. Except when and if we move into a condominium, I will probably grow some herbs in containers, chiefly because one of the joys of growing herbs is that you can step outside (if your herb garden is outside) or go to the containers, inside, pick fresh herbs, wash them, and have them in the food you're cooking within minutes. Now that is fresh. And there's something Old School about it.



Rosemary is easy to grow, smells heavenly, is great with chicken and some fish, but is almost impossible to transplant. If a rosemary plant gets old enough, it will become a serious shrub, with real "rosemary wood," which is quite hard, densely fibrous. Basil has a good reputation, but I tended to use it in cooking much less than I thought I would, and it's a bit persnickety, from a gardener's perspective. Chives: easy to grow, full of flavor, versatile. Thyme: heavenly to smell, wonderful in soups and saauces. Oregano: a lot of fun to grow, especially outside, because the bees love that pale purple flowering. Oregano's great with fish, chicken, Italian stuff, soups. Mint: Once you get it started, it's basically impossible NOT to grow it. It's great to walk near it, bend, pick it, crush a leaf, and smell the aroma. Lots of uses, obviously. . . . .



But if I grow herbs, I'm not hurling myself back into the activity. It mustn't be work. But for the effort one puts in, herbs pay one back handsomely.



--A wee poem about gardening, then, one that plays off Stevens's famous "Idea of Order at Key West," but is not in the least as ambitious as that poem; and maybe there's the slightest echo of Richard Hugo's "The Art of Poetry." Here's the poem, a bit of a goodbye to gardening:



The Idea of Disorder In a Garden


Intricacies of fine soil abide.
Writhing worms advise and consent.
Rain stimulates an economy
of chemicals and bacteria. Ah,
Francesca, some people would rather
talk of gardening than garden; others
would rather garden than talk
of anything. You talk as you garden,
a few well chosen words presented
like a bouquet of Russian sage.

Gardens are always on the verge
of becoming something we had not
intended them, in our tending, to be:
This seems to have been your argument,
premised on soil today. My listening, Francesca,
was a kind of cultivation, too.



Copyright 2007

Questions For Presidential Aspirants

In spite of my better judgment, I've watched a few of the presidential-aspirant "debates," which of course aren't debates, any more than "reality TV" is less scripted that other kinds of TV. The "debates" are question-and-answer sessions, as well as strange montages of candidates' faces. Also, the answers are, naturally, unrelated to the questions, except in the case of Ron Paul, who answers questions directly and tells the truth, as he sees it. He appears to be appealing rhetorically to people who can handle bad news and/or who share his libertarian views. In other words, he appears doomed to failure with regard to presidential politics. But then all of the candidates are thusly doomed, except for Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, and Mitt Romney. These candidates have all the money. McCain is comparatively low on money, but Giuliani and Romney are so bad that he still has a chance. Maybe Fred Thompson has a chance, too, but I doubt it. He doesn't look well, and he doesn't look as if his heart is in it. His lies are extremely half-hearted. One has to sell the untruth. He seems to believe his lines on Law and Order more than he believes his lines from his pre-debate briefings. As a politician, Reagan was much more professional at delivering lines than Thompson is.

The "race" on the democratic side is over, barring some kind of catastrophe. Obama and Edwards are done for. The others know for sure that they have already lost.

I think Giuliani will be the next president. I take no joy in making this prediction. He's a very disturbing, disturbed man.

At the same time, I don't believe who is president (from this "field" from both parties) matters much. "We" will get out of Iraq when the military and the large oil companies and the private contractors think we should. "We" will get "universal health-care" when large corporations think we should. The gap between rich and poor will continue to widen, no matter who wins the next election. The natural history of global warming, overpopulation, over-fishing, etc., will likely proceed apace. "Corporate person-hood," that disastrous concept, will continue to flourish. The Supreme Court will remain composed of insular, elite, idiosyncratic, self-important alchemists.

On the other hand, God works in mysterious ways. You just never know when something good might come out of something so obviously gone awry, structurally, as presidential politics. And the next president simply cannot be as much of a horrific parody-president as George W. Bush, who is a more awful president than Kurt Vonnegut or Mark Twain (consummate satirists) could have invented. GWB is a performance artist with virtually unlimited political and military power. He is a form of punishment inflicted on the U.S. (and the world) by the U.S. He is fascinatingly grotesque. The next president will be an improvement over George W. Bush. This is saying very little, but it is still good news. I think we need to accentuate the positive. Keep the faith, baby! Faith in what? Well, in whatever floats your boat. And think of all the people in American history who had it far, far worse than we have--but who nonetheless persisted, somehow, some way. As Langston Hughes says in one of his poems (speaking for many African Americans), "I'm still here." Have some laughs, and do somebody a good turn. Plant something--a tree, a tomato plant, whatever. Don't forget to water it. Keep on keeping on. Listen for the lies ALL politicians say, and don't believe them--the lies or the politicians.

In an alternate universe, the presidential aspirants would be asked interesting questions, and they would answer them. The following questions happen to be the ones I am most interested in having the aspirants answer, directly and truthfully--recognizing, of course, that no human can tell the complete truth. The questions are in no particular order. I encourage all poets (and citizens in general) to construct their own lists of questions, post them somewhere on the Internet, and send them to news outlets.

1. Who is one of your favorite poets and why?

2. Name one of your favorite poems and say briefly why you like it.

3. What is the most serious lie you have told in your life and to whom did you tell it?

4. Will you promise that, during the campaign, you will submit yourself to the most severe interrogation-techniques used by the CIA and other agencies and then report to us about your experience, suggesting whether you view these techniques to be a form of torture or not?

5. Will all of you please remove your shoes and socks and proceed to wash each other's feet? (Thank you.)

6. Please briefly outline your plan for re-distributing (with the assistance of the FCC and Congress) the ownership of media in the United States, all right?

7. Will you promise to make the annual budgets of the CIA and the NSA available to all taxpayers? If not, why not?

8. Who is the poorest person you know, where does she or he live, and how might we most effectively help him or her?

9. What do you dislike most about yourself?

10. Will you promise to dig the grave for or to help cremate the bodies of the next American soldier and next innocent Iraqi citizen killed in the war? If not, why not?

Hey, What's The Deal?

"Deal" seems to be a word with multiple personalities. The OED online lists four separate noun-versions, with sub-definitions within those categories. The first version has something to do with portions or parts, such as a "deal" of land, as in a portion of land. The second version has more to do with sharing or transaction, and one species of this version historically has been used to refer to "transactions of a questionable nature," out of which sprang expressions like "raw deal" or "bad deal." But you can have good deals, too, of course: "We good a good deal on our new car." "Big deal" seems to be used largely in a sarcastically way: "You stepped on my toe." Answer: "Oh, big deal [get over it]."

"No deal" seems suggest, or perhaps even denote, "No, I do not wish to do business with you" or "No, we do not have an agreement."

Believe it or not, "deal" also was used to refer to sexual intercourse; the citations are to British texts from the late 1500's.

"Deal" can also refer to a slice of a log--but mainly pine or fir (soft wood). So when Wallace Stevens refers to a piece of "deal" furniture in his famous poem, "The Emperor of Ice Cream," he's referring to an inexpensive piece of furniture, such as a chest of drawers made of pine-wood. Of course, "deal" also means distribute--as in dealing cards, and as in the figurative "deal me in," meaning that one wishes to have a portion of some activity or enterprise distributed to him or her, or more specifically that one wants to join a card game and, presumably, is eager to distribute his or her money to others, under the pretense of "gambling." Casinos never gamble, of course. Their "deal" is to make money, steadily and predictably.

Persons in my parents' generation and films from that era seemed to like the expression, "Hey, what's the deal?!" It seemed to be a way of questioning inappropriate behavior, to let somebody know you noticed something wrong. "What's the big idea?" seemed to be a cousin to this expression. "Hey, Bub [or Buster], what's the big idea?" That sounds so Forties to me.

Sometimes people seem to identify their employment or type of business by using the word "deal": "I deal strictly in commercial real estate." "We deal in higher-end jewelry." "I just did a deal in Colorado, as a matter of fact." Ah, to do a deal.

In professional sports, when one player is "traded" to another team, sportscasters (and what a word sportscaster is!) often report, "He was dealt to the Phillies from San Francisco," almost as if the player were flung across the continent like a playing-card; well, I suppose in some ways he was.

My father tended to refer to people who seemed suspiciously busy and self-important as "wheeler-dealers." Somebody who was slick, who had something to sell, and/or who seemed to be involved in many things but not to do much real work--this was the classic "wheeler-dealer," in his world-view. At some point, you could count on my father also observing, mildly, without anger, that this "wheeler-dealer" was also "full of bullshit." This is a very complicated condition, metaphorically, to be a wheeler-dealer full of bullshit. It's quite a burden, really.

In the following poem, "deal" refers to an implied transaction, a business-deal of sorts, really the ultimate contract :

What The Deal Is, Apparently

I did not know it then, but
as I was being biologically
conceived and cellularly developed,
I was borrowing my one and only
life. By being born and continuing
to be, I signed a contract with
eternity. In return for one life, I
agreed to live it, receiving rights,
privileges, wretchedness, befuddlement,
appetites, and terror pertaining
thereunto. This life is the only
situation I, in my one-time capacity
as me, will know. The whole
set-up seems bizarre, but there is
no other, according to the contract.
This is the deal.

Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom

Worry Wart

I can't remember exactly when I first heard the term "worry wart." Now the term seems to be out of fashion, although most people still seem to know at least that it refers not to a type of blemish but to a person who worries obsessively, whose personality is to some extent defined by worry.

I do remember my mother telling me one day--I was probably between the ages of 8 and 11--that I shouldn't be "such a worry wart." Of course, I have no idea what I was worrying about at the time, and therein lies one lesson which worry warts seem unable fully to absorb. Posed as a rhetorical question, the lesson is as follows: will this thing you're worrying about matter ten years, ten months, ten weeks, or even ten minutes from now? As all worry warts know, such questions are entirely reasonable and therefore beside the point.

If the OED is to be believed, the term "worry guts" or "worryguts" preceded "worry wart.." Both terms, "worry guts" and "worry wart," are not immediately, shall we say, appealing.

Anyway, here's some additional informaton from the OED, with kind thanks to the producers of that resource:

9. Comb.: worryguts dial. and colloq. = worry wart; freq. as a term of address; worry pear (tree) = CHOKE-PEAR; worry wart colloq. (chiefly U.S.), an inveterate worrier, one who frets unnecessarily.
1932 Somerset Year Bk. 83 The missis, who be a prapper worryguts. 1966 O. NORTON School of Liars iv. 72 He laughed. ‘Worryguts!’ ‘I wasn't worried. I was just trying to be efficient.’ 1982 D. PHILLIPS Coconut Kiss ix. 94 It's all right..isn't it?’ I asked. ‘'Course it is, Worryguts,’ said Vera.
1562 TURNER Herbal II. 108 The wyld Pere tre or chouke Pere tre or worry Pear tre.
1956 I. BELKNAP Human Problems of State Mental Hospitals x. 177 The persevering, nagging delusional groupwho were termed ‘worry warts’, ‘nuisances’, ‘bird dogs’, in the attendants' slang. 1974 J. HELLER Something Happened 445 ‘Don't be such a worry wart.’ ‘Don't use that phrase. It makes my skin prickle.’



So the term "worry wart" seems not to be that old, even as it may be receding from colloquial American usage. It's interesting (to me) that "worry warts," at least according to this fellow Belknap (cited above) , were deemed sufficiently problematic to be sequestered in mental hospitals. I think Dr. Belknap, if indeed he was a doctor, may have been over-reacting. Perhaps he was something of a worry wart.

I notice that the term "worry pear," referring literally to a kind of pear that tastes bad (acidic) and figuratively to a person who worries too much, seems to have preceded both worry guts and worry wart. A worry pear was also referred to as a choke pear, and "choke pear" sent me on another investigative adventure because I was worried that I didn't know enough. The investigation led to a harrowing discovery on the site "Infoplease":

Choke-pear

An argument to which there is no answer. Robbers in Holland at one time made use of a piece of iron in the shape of a pear, which they forced into the mouth of their victim. On turning a key, a number of springs thrust forth points of iron in all directions, so that the instrument of torture could never be taken out except by means of the key. (from Infoplease, online, with thanks)

I had never heard the term "choke-pear" before today, thus I had never heard it used to refer to an argument to which there is no answer ("What are you, an idiot?" seems to be such a question. One doesn't want to answer "Yes," but one doesn't want to answer "No" because to do so lends legitimacy to a question one views as illegitimate. One doesn't want to answer, "I'm not sure" because one might feel as if one is giving an idiotic answer.) Nor, of course, had I ever heard of this Dutch torture-device used by robbers. Good grief! Now I'm really worried!

(I had heard the term "choke-cherry," referring to a plant native to the Sierra Nevada [and perhaps elsewhere] that produce tiny fruits that look like miniature cherries but that are extremely sour; they may look "ripe" but are never sweet. I don't think they're poisonous, but you'd still have to be extremely hungry to eat them. Of course, I tried them a couple of times; children are empiricists. I did not suffer poisonous effects, nor did I choke, but oh my were they sour. )

In any event, here is what is intended to be a playful poem (with some playful rhymes, not unlike those found in some of Langston Hughes's poetry) about worry:

Thin Poem Concerning Worry


Late and early
I worry.
Early and late
I seem to hate
to let go.
I do not know
how to control
a mind on patrol
late and early.
I should surely
know by now
how not to worry.
I often vow
not to worry,
not to worry,
but then hurry
to worry,
wander into
troubled pondering;
take the hubris bait
early and
late--and imagine
that I can
change things
by pulling
these worry-strings,
making the puppet,
me, unfree
of worry, dancing
on a tiny set
in a miniature hell
called Fret.

Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom

Ego

According to the OED online "ego," as referring to "the conscious thinking self," entered the English language toward the end of the 18th century; in fact, the first citation is from 1789. As a psychological term referring to that part of the mind that is most conscious of the self, it arose about 100 years later, along with "depth psychology," of course; and at about the same time, it came to refer, negatively, to self-centeredness. That is, according to psychology, "normal" human beings, whatever that means, are supposed to have egos, a sense of themselves, some kind of unified personality. But society suggests--or does it?--that we shouldn't have egos in the sense of being selfish, drawing too much attention to ourselves, and--in the extreme--becoming narcissitic or sociopathic.

All the major religions seem to encourage a person to check the ego, to look not for ourselves when we look inward but (perhaps) for God, and to look outward--to others (especially those in need), to mystery, to the fact that everything changes, to the fact the ego is short-lived. Buddhist texts, The Bhagavad Gita, the Q'uran, the Bible--all seem to agree, perhaps loosely, certainly from different perspectives, on this anti-ego stance.

And yet this society, the only one I know relatively well, really constantly asserts the opposite. It is obsessed with celebrity, personal wealth, getting ahead personally, buying stuff to make oneself look great, and so on. In what way is Donald Trump, for example, not quintessentially American, and if he is that, then is there something wrong with how Americans define themselves, and if he is not that, then why is he so poplar, such an icon? In what particular ways does he advance the Golden Rule or basic precepts of the Judeo-Christian tradition or of any spiritual tradition?. . . Jacques Ellul claims that one key to propaganda in any culture (including ours) is that it appeals to the masses but in a way that gives the individual the sense that he or she is being addressed individually. So when a politician derides "running out of Iraq with our tail between our legs," he is appealing to some kind of mass-pride in a mythic "America" that can be reduced to the image of a dog, but he is also inviting each person to think of himself or herself as a beaten dog running away, and thus to reject anything connected with ending that war.

In fact, the word "we" is rather beside the point. The people who will leave from or stay in Iraq are military personnel, some journalists, and some private contractors. They aren't dogs, and they don't have tails, and if the military leaves, it ought to leave in the way that preserves the most lives--of the personnel and of Iraqi citizens. "Running out of Iraq with our tail between our legs" thus disintegrates completely, as a statement with any meaning, when treated with the simplest analysis. And yet as propaganda, it apparently works--on individuals, on their egos. It means something because it appears to mean something.

TV has become an especially bad place for ideas or genuine, interesting disagreements (as opposed to shout-ping-pong or interrupt-o-rama) to be explored, partly because it is composed chiefly of advertisement, around which "programming" is folded like wet bread, but also because those moderating the ideas have ceased to moderate or to be moderate. Say what you will about Larry King--he's old, he can lob softball questions, and every guest if of the same cultural importance--but he sets his ego aside and lets people talk; at least he gets that much done. Obviously, Larry King must have a huge ego; he's ambitious, and he likes being liked and likes knowing famous people. But as an interviewer, he can control his ego. Charley Rose seems to be able to do that, too--and Tavis Smiley.

But mostly TV isn't interested in ideas, nuances, thoughtfulness, or exchanges that are neither rushed, combative, faced, or some combination of all three. That's too bad. Once this popular medium had some potential, didn't it? Think of how good it might have been. It is now awful, and I think it's not going to get better. So when someone like Ron Paul (he may be right, he may be wrong, he may be both, that's not the point) cuts through the crap and speaks what he takes to be the truth, we are a) refreshed (again, whether we think he's right or not) and b) certain that his candidacy will go nowhere because he has chosen to say what he really thinks and to pursue a line of argument instead of saying something involves tails between legs, yadda-yadda.

The following wee poem concerns ego, and it's certainly one I could stand to take to heart (physician, heal thyself, and all that):

Station K-E-G-O

It’s just him, broadcasting
to himself with one watt
of power, pretending
to interview an Other,
playing requests and
and taking calls
he called in to himself,
about himself,
breaking for news about his life,
weather he enjoys, sports
that delight him. This
is Radio Solipcism,
from a studio of Self,
broadcast to stations
all along the Narcissistic Network.

Old Technology

In class we were studying the grim poem, "Ballad for Miss Gee," by W.H. Auden, and the poem refers to Miss Gee's bicycle, which is braked by reversing the pedals. Of course I rode such a bicycle when I was a kid, but I assumed that such old technology had long ago gone by the wayside. So I asked my students if they'd heard of such a braking system, and not only had they heard of it, but several had also ridden such bicycles--and recently. I was thrilled that some piece of old technology had persisted, unlike slide-rules and typewriters--not that I miss either of these items. Technology that persists, however incidental it may be, adds continuity to life.

My late friend, colleague, coauthor, and fellow student Wendy Bishop edited several books for Boynton/Cook-Heinemann publishers beginning with The Subject Is. . . . in the title. The Subject Is Writing, The Subject Is Reading, and The Subject Is Story are among them. They collect essays written chiefly by college teachers but pitched to college students; they're nifty, useful little books, eclectic, grounded, and innovative, just like Wendy was.

I borrowed the template of her titles for the following poem about a bicycle, if indeed the poem is about a bicycle:

The Subject Is The Bicycle

This is not I repeat not about me.
It is about the bicycle.

I could have been anyone and was.
Only the bicycle could have been and was the bicycle:

bent, oxidized, built for flatness but
mis-fortuned to High Sierra.

One wheel rubbed against a chrome
deco fender: a rhythm of wear,

an indentured, oblong Cole Porter
song, a raw wound on physics’ perfect hide.

The bicycle went on to represent me in Congress.
It praised my auto-didactic schemes,

which were not I repeat not about
me but about just trying to move along,

even if the chain needs oiling, even if a slow leak
betrays the tube, even if the handle-bars slip.

Motion means balance. Stasis falls over.
The subject is riding persistence.

Copyright 2007

Baseball Sestina

Watching baseball on TV momentarily the other evening, a friend said, "Baseball has its own pace. That's for sure." Baseball is slow, but then at times, everything happens all at once. To say the least, baseball does not attract the best athletes. An extremely ordinary athlete who knows how to throw a knuckle-ball, for example, can enjoy a long career at the top of the professional game. One such player was even a chain-smoker of cigarettes. And yet there are aspects of baseball that reveal it to be a highly evolved human game, with hints of myth, art, and theater. Bernard Malamud captured as much in the novel, The Natural, to which the movie did not begin to do justice, of course.

The sestina form, which recycles six line-ending words, seemed somehow suited well to the subject of baseball, so ritualistic and recursive is that game.

In the midst of autumnal baseball in the U.S., then, here's a sestina for the game:

Sestina: Baseball

The circle is the center of the game:
The trip from home to home; mound; ball.
And Baseball’s creed is O-pen-ness: fields;
Gloves like birds’ mouths; past fences lies forever.
The game plays out in formulae of three.
Combinations interlock like rings.

Grave umpires speak in prophecy that rings
Out in the voice of Moses. Out, Strike, Ball
Mean really Shame, Yes, No! The game
Is subtle, though, like its faintly sloping fields.
And indefinite: A game can last forever
In theory, infinitely tied at 3 to 3.

Though rules say nine may play, it’s often three
Who improvise a play within the game.
(Tinkers, Evers, Chance). Pitcher lends ball
To air. Potentiality of bat rings
With power in that instance. All fields
Beckon to innocence and hope forever.

One chance at a time drops from forever.
Player with a caged face grabs for ball.
But batter knocks ball back into the ring
Of readiness, at which point one of three
Things happen that can happen in the game:
Safe or Out or Ball-Beyond-All-Fields:

Home run. Inspire the ball past finite fields,
And you voyage honored on the sea that rings
The inner island. Sail home, touch three
White islands, Hero. Gamers since forever
Have tried to sail past limits of the game,
Shed physics’ laws, hold Knowledge like a ball.

To know this game you have to know the ball,
An atom when contrasted with green fields—
Less than an orange, white with red pinched rings
Of stitches ridged for grip. With ball come three
Essential tasks: throw, catch, bat. These are forever
Of the Circle in the Center of the Game.

Dropped in the fluid game, the solid ball
Starts widening rings of chance, concentric threes
That open out into the Field. Baseball. Forever.

Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom

Oboe Poem, Etc.

A student in one of my classes plays the oboe in a wind ensemble. I don't know much about the oboe, except that I like its sound. She explained that the oboe is very difficult to play because it has two reeds. She also said that playing the oboe requires such a sustained output of breath that one kills brain cells when playing it. Oxygen deprivation. Yikes.

So I was looking through The Norton Book of Light Verse, edited by Russell Baker, and there, on page 92, is a poem entitled "Oboe."


Oboe


Hard to pronounce and play, the OBOE--
(With cultured folk it rhymes with
"doughboy"
Though many an intellectual hobo
Insists that we should call it oboe)
However, be that as it may,
Whene'er the oboe sounds its A
All of the others start their tuning
And there is fiddling and bassooning.
Its plaintive note presaging gloom
Brings anguish to the concert room,
Even the player holds his breath
And scares the audience to death
For fear he may get off the key,
Which happens not infrequently.
This makes the saying understood:
"It's an ill wood wind no one blows good."

by Laurence McKinney


I showed the poem to the oboe-player, and she enjoyed it, but of course there aren't that many oboe-poems from which to choose. . . . --Interesting that apparently at some point "oboe" was not pronounced the way we pronounce it. . . . . I don't know enough about symphony-orchestras to know which player usually plays the first note when the tuning-up begins. Is it always or often the oboe-player? If so, why? . . . .I did observe to the oboe-player that I thought the oboe sounded better than the clarinet, but maybe that's not fair. Maybe it all depends on the piece and/or the player. . . . Does the oboe always sound gloomy? Probably not. There are probably all sorts of lighter, brighter pieces of music that feature the oboe. . . . But it certainly can sound gloomy. Is it possible for a tuba to sound gloomy? I suppose.

Here's another light, if much more fanciful, poem about musical instruments. I think it first appeared in an anthology called The Art of Music, published in California.

Bobby’s Crop

Bobby leased two-hundred acres,
planted clarinets & saxophones. Come harvest
time, he hired bands to play them. It’s a good life,
farming instruments. Folks say
even Bobby’s pigs root rhythmically.
His cows chew the blues.
Oh that sweet Kansas breeze,
swagging through sugar beets and wheat—
and catfish nosing into dusky
muck. That
tornado shuffling up I-35 from Oklahoma
—ain’t no thing to Bobby .
It skirts his acres, sniffs the barn,
now doglegs to Nebraska.
Bobby calls the twister Coltrane, goes
inside, fetches iced tea for himself
and the Missus, plenty of sugar
and a downbeat of lemon. Hey, Bobby. Hey.





Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom