The Ambiguous Apprentice
When does ambiguously free verse
also become emphatically political verbing verse?
I was emphatically reading pieces
ambiguously written
about my sons,
to my oldest son's girlfriend.
The longer I read
the more she cried.
Now it had been my hope
and passion
to become the next Kurt Vonnegut
of PolyCulturing Healthy Outcome Design,
or at least John Irving
at his all ecopolitical lives matter, and not, satirical best,
and so I finally had to ask,
Are these tears of sadness?
Yes and no.
Sometimes, says she,
mostly happy that someone else
sees him as I do
when I am at my best,
but sadness too
that we live in your world
of our own re-creation
about what you write
is too often left unsaid
uncreated
or even thought about.
I thought this might be a compliment
and so I read bravely on
through her quiet tears
of sad happiness
until she asked me to stop.
Could you teach me to write
like you?
No.
I doubt I could even help you write
like you.
Why,
are you having trouble writing by and of yourself?
Yes.
I worry I have nothing to say,
no place to safely yet nakedly lay.
About half the poets
and novelists
believe that is a prerequisite
to great literature
and becoming an authentically mature artiste.
Having nothing to say.
Yes. But saying whatever very well.
And the other half,
what they mainly have to say
is to have something to pray
which you would be wiser through hearing
yourself display
what you just said.
And if they believed
as does the opposing mindless half
then they would not embarrass themselves
by writing any no thing at all.
Well, which is right,
do you think?
More to your point,
which is right
about your writing?
If you can trust each empty page
longs to fill with your good humor
and best wisdom,
then you might begin
by having nothing on your Left languaged mind
except some brief turn of lyrical phrase
or return of some event
devoid of context
which musefully incarnates as content
as your pen rolls along each shaping word
and returning phrase
and four dimensional as seasonal
reasonal harmonic lines
and sentences for joyful life,
not just lonely sad death.
Next thing you know
sad dying cooperatively together
restores joyful life justice
where lived sad loves evilly alone
and you are editing in search of paragraphs
to create sufficient spaces
between maturing lines of thought
you heard as one compare/contrast before
you've always said
and hoped someday to read,
then editing through pages of ego/eco-logical content
about...
what?
We're not sure
until we're done.
-----------------------------------------------------------
She was crying again.
So I found an old barely used notebook
and a fresh pen,
a nearly full box of gaily pure white tissue
and handed them to her,
Suggesting she might write about tears
of sad yet lovely joy.
Where might I best begin,
she wisely asks.
At the top,
either left or right
depending on which hemisphere you most speak,
I not so wisely answer.
And, the first principle of multicultural story telling
is to be sure your reader
continues to understand and appreciate
and feel gratitude for
your protagonist
inevitably our favorite underdog,
because life's a joyful sad
but what are we going to gratefully do
with her,
or it,
and them?
The pen and notebook?
In your left and right hands?
So, I just start at the top
and re-imagine us
whether protagonist-in with antagonist-out,
or potential future solution
within a vexing co-present problem,
ways we choose to fold and unfold
sad space
as also joyful time of opportunity?
Spoken as a true tragic-comedy loving physicist
pretending to become a metaphysical teller of history,
your story,
written as we speak together
in domesticating yet still wild imaginations,
political thought experiments,
narratives,
prose as also poetry.
Precisely as I see our sadly joyful situation too.
All we have are protagonist underdogs
and antagonist overlords,
and each lies both sadly and joyously
across each bicameral heart and mind
singing
When I fall in nondual co-arising love,
we will be forever,
Reading stories of favorite sons
to tearful joys of future daughters
for revolutionary story telling,
more cooperative
than my damnably antagonistic
overlording sons!
When did ambiguously free verse
also become emphatically democratic reverse?
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