The Poem that Started All This*

 
 

Simple Sympathy

Bill calls because you’re still
angry, not at him, but everything.
Bill wouldn’t call if you were just angry at him.

So, instead of walking to the water’s edge to sit
zazen on the spot on the bench someone carved PAUL
into years before you appeared with your dumb ritual

-- bowing once before it, turning, bowing again to the sound,
then sitting, bowing again and then just sitting
maybe fifteen, eighteen minutes in all weather--

you rant over the wind’s blow into the cell phone and Bill,
like a patient boxing coach with sparring mitts gives
you just enough flat punchback to keep you  swinging, bleeding

off just enough of your blockheaded hate
for feckless actors and administrators in a rag doll
death dying theatre and mostly your own damned self

for writing another damned play to put on a shelf
over and over putting yourself here,
in front of these waves strangely 

luminous, ominous, heaving the sound
in sympathy,  or so it seems,
to your simple mind.

 

 

 *The create date on the Word file containing this poem is Monday, October 26, 2009, exactly a year ago today.  Obviously, I was stuck in a very frustrated place.  I had just learned that the theatre in Southern California that seemed so eager to premiere my farce Gossamer Grudges had suddenly, unaccountably and irrevocably lost interest. We at NewsWrights United were also starting to realize that a certain “nice” leader within Seattle’s regional theatre echelons was not, in fact, going to come through on his glad-handing promises of resources and good will for the first edition of our Living Newspaper, It’s Not in the P-I.  I was feeling fucked, frankly, and very deeply sorry for myself. 

Anger has always been a part of my life.  Twenty years of Zen practice has not changed that and I doubt the remainder of a lifetime will.  Anger is part of who I am.  On the other hand, anger is not always inappropriate.  Certainly when it comes to Seattle’s current theatre situation, the old hippy adage applies: “If you’re not outraged you’re not paying attention.”  And, of course, anger unshared is absolutely no fun at all.

I didn’t know it then, but within a few weeks of howling out this poem, I would begin planning the essays that I started posting here last December.  I suspect Bill Salyers is glad that I now have this place to vent.  For my part, I am grateful too to have Just Wrought, but much so much more grateful that I have my Zen practice, friends like Bill, and the wide open daunting weather of the Puget Sound in autumn, vast enough to humble any marginally sane human being.

Full disclosure:  I reworked the poem a bit since I first posted it on Face Book a year ago.

 

Comments

[August Schulenburg]

Thanks for this poem, Paul.

[Paul Mullin]

Why, you're very welcome, August.

[Kymberlee]

I love every bit of this. The poem, the picture with your shoes, the raw honesty and the explanation. It's all so relatable (relate-able?)

I most especially love this line: "And, of course, anger unshared is absolutely no fun at all."

So true.

Your expression makes me breathe more deeply. Thank you for that.