Poetry & A Crappy Week

As soon as I call this week crappy, it gets all overly sensitive and defensive. And I recognize that it wasn't ALL crappy. Just a significant enough portion to label it thus in my post title.

If I was a teacher, I'd give it a C-. If I was a doctor, I'd say it was sick. If I was an engineer, I'd redesign it... somebody stop me!

Arrived home late Sunday night from being out of town.

Started the week with a day-long visit from the mother-in-law (nuff said).

A woman was raped a few miles from my house and my resulting paranoia is affecting my running.

I had a conflict with a friend over POLITICS which is my least favorite topic, but at least it got resolved. If I'm going to have a conflict with a friend, I'd rather it be over something much more interesting --- like a man! (Just kidding.)

And (rather on a high note) I found a friend from junior high and it's been really great talking with her on e-mail. At the same time, it's been almost overly thought-provoking as she has shared with me the story of finding her birth mother and all that has gone along with that.

Also, I'm experiencing a craving for poetry which has led me to check out two books of poetry from the library in the past two weeks.

So, I plan to go pop some popcorn and stare into space and process all this (wish me luck). But before I go, I have to quote Garrison Keillor in the Introduction to Good Poems for Hard Times.

Here's Mr. Keillor --- and here's to a good weekend, - I could use it.

Poetry is a necessity as simple as the need to be touched and similarly a need that is hard to enunciate. The intense vision and high spirits and moral grandeur are simply needed lest we drift through our days consumed by clothing options and hair styling and whether to have the soup or the salad.

The meaning of poetry is to give courage. A poem is not a puzzle that you the dutiful reader is obliged to solve. It is meant to poke you, get you to buck up, pay attention, rise and shine, look alive, get a grip, get the picture, pull up your socks, wake up and die right.

At times life becomes almost impossible, and you curl up under a blanket in a dim room behind drawn shades and you despise your life, which seems mean and purposeless, a hoax and a cheat, your shining chances all wasted, pissed away, nobody can change this or make this better, love is lost, hope gone, nothing left but to pour a glass of gin and listen to weepy music. But it can help to say words. Moaning helps. So does prayer. God hears prayer and restores the souls of the faithful. Walking helps. Many people have pulled themselves up out of the pit by the simple expedient of rising to their feet, leaning slightly forward, and putting one foot ahead of the other. Poems help.