Soapbox

Ladies and gentlemen,
spectators and poets,
I rise tonight  in praise of the article, the conjunction
and of the gentle letter "A".

Like you I have heard the lessons
passed on by too many novice teachers of writing,
their diplomas still new on the wall.
I have heard the gosple of poetry as a purely enigmatic art form.
It is preached by men with balding pony tails and questionable personal hygiene,
sipping espresso in seedy cafes,
that a poem that makes sense
is mere pabulum for the massses.
And, like you, I have witnessed the carnage of syntax and sense
that can result from strict adherence to these fundamentalist beliefs.

My fellow writers of verse-
I come before you tonight to suggest that the word "the"
is not a thing to be shunned, but rather embraced,
for the lowly article and the simple conjunction
are the glue that holds language in place.
It is my belief,
my fellow explorers of the remote back country and high, craggy reaches of muse
that the pronoun, the preposition and even the unpreposessing period
can be the foundation of understanding and enlightenment.

I believe that a poem, like a car, has many parts
which are complex and bewildering to the casual observer:
catalytic converters, labyrinthine electrical systems,
convoluted transmission and enigmatic differentials.
I submit to you that these constructs are the nouns and verb-age of poetry
and like car parts, it is not always necessary to understand them,
to appreciate them.
It follows that if adjectives are the leather upholstery, burled walnut dash,
heated power mirrors and six-speaker stereo system of verse,
then the lowly conjunctions, articles and pronouns
are the nuts and bolts and superglue that hold the machine together
and enable the listener to glide along the highways to understanding.

For a pile of parts,
no matter how complex their engineering or luxurious their appearance,
will not transport your friends from here to there,
and a pile of words, no matter their lovely shape and pleasing juxtaposition
will not take your audience where you are trying to go!

A poem is a tower we build to lift our listeners, along with ourselves
to the apex of lyrical enlightenment;
our apotheosis from mere ground-dweller to the divine.
And if some build their towers a bit too high for the rest of us to breathe
the rarified air at their dizzying heights,
no matter.
For when the tower is constructed with empathy for the reader
and liberal use of verbal mortar and nails
we can at least admire the beauty of line and form
even if we rise only a bit above sea level.
And perhaps at some later date
we might yet puzzle our way up the winding staircase
and attain the author’s point of view.

But the poet who only piles interesting words higher and higher
with no attempt to connect the vocabulary in anything resembling human conversation
constructs only a pile of words:
provocative to regard
but un-enticing, even dangerous to climb.

In some cases, understanding is not even their goal.
Some poets are of that breed
who scatter words like New Year’s Eve confetti
in an attempt to convey
only the impression of their own profound intelligence
and formidable spiritual depth,
believeing the listener will think that they do not understand the work
only because they are not yet worthy.

I would remind my fellow writers that all too often
absolutism in pursuit of such linguistic fragmentation
engenders in the listener- not humble awe,
but a mad urge to rush the stage and overturn the lectern
or, in the more dexterous,
thoughts of fashioning some sort of noose from drinking straws
 to bring a quick end to this tyranny of words.

And it is with keen memory of this very desire fresh in my own breast
that I would exhort this august assemblage tonight
that there is no sin in explaining what you mean,
and that many a well-intentioned verse
could benefit from a more liberal application of the word "The".

Thank you, Madame Moderator.
I now surrender the floor and my remaining time to the next writer.

Attention customers!
The management and staff would like to take this opportunity to remind you
that this store was not put on earth
to be your personal coffeecup holder,  playpen or toybox.
The proper place to dispose of your half-empty vente soy decaf latte
is not on a shelf of scrapbook paper.
We have trash cans. Ask us!

Also, please do not allow your children
to wipe their noses on the new autumn suedes collection,
chase each other up and down the aisles
or climb on shelves filled with glass objects.
We do not  appreciate you letting them open boxes and distribute the contents
or color with the sharpie markers on our floor tiles simply because-
hey, it keeps them from bugging you while you chat on your phone
about your nail appointment tomorrow.

No, the fact that you have to get little Madison to soccer by four
does not entitle you skip to the head of the line,
it simply demonstrates your poor time management
and a herd mentality when it comes to chosing names.

This is a craft store. It says so in big letters on the front of the building.
We do not sell office supplies, tube socks or milk,
regardless of how convenient it would be for you if we did.
So don’t get in my face about what we don’t carry,
as if I personally made the decision not to stock it
because I knew you were coming in and wanted to ruin your day!

Please do not attempt to communicate with me through hand gestures
or by mouthing words across your cell phone call.
If you can not hang up long enough to speak to me
I will go assist a customer who can!
I may work for menial wages, but I have a college degree-
magne cum laude, bitch!- so don’t talk to me like I rode the short bus to school!
Ok, I have poor career planning skills,
but I can still write an expository paper- with footnotes!-
on a book I"ve never read, in an hour and a half,
that would make any English teacher in America weep with joy!

And by the way, we announced 10 minutes ago that the store is closing.
Unless you are taking out the trash or cleaning our bathrooms,
that means you have to go home!
News flash: even retail drones have homes and lives,
and we would like to get back to them as soon as possible.
So put down the glue gun, go get your child
(who is around the corner opening packages of modeling clay by the way-
thanks for that!)
and get the hell out of here!

For your convenience, this store will re-open tomorrow at 9 AM.
Please feel free to come back then because tomorrow is my day off!
Thank you and have a pleasant evening.

Ancient feet once trod through the mud of a prehistoric river
that has long since turned to stone.
These few, faint impressions-
all that is left to tell the story of that ancient journey
all that remains of the fears, struggles, hopes and dreams
of some long forgotten life.

Dark scratches on a folded piece of paper
tucked inside an envelope-
a loop, a whorl,
dotted and crossed:
just a letter you once sent,
but all that now remains of your thoughts of me that day,
footprints locked in the stone of our past.

Variations of light and dark, of bright and shadow,
a petrified smile in Kodachrome that once was you.
Your hand reaches out to touch my shoulder
frozen, mere inches from contact,
forever unconnected now.

Flickering images on celluloid pretend to be you,
waving at the camera at your birthday party.
Magnetic flecks on a bit of tape-
use your voice to ask me to,
"Leave a message at the beep".

What good to me is a letter
without the hand that wrote it?
Yet I surround myself with these fossils,
the burned images of our own Pompeii,
tucked in boxes, slipped into a drawer.
They comfort me and they mock me
for they have journeyed with me into the present
but you are forever in the past
leaving me only these footprints in stone.

I can touch them,
but they do not contain you,
these marks and shapes, this sound and shadow.
Yet sometimes, if I stand within your footprints
and listen carefully to the stillness
as I open myself up wide
I feel you,
trembling on the brink between past and present
and the stone grows soft again beneath me
from your recent passing.

"Come see me Mommy,
time by time"
she would whisper around her little thumb
as I walked to the door
and turned out the light.

Just four years old
and a little nervous about being left alone at night,
still, she let me go without tears or protest
because we had an agreement.
She knew that in a few minutes
I would slip back in the room
to stroke her hair
and whisper reassuring words in the dark.
And I would keep coming in,
time by time,
until she fell asleep,
secure in the knowledge that even when I was gone
I was never far away.

Today I took her to college.
I loaded up her computer and her bedspread,
her books and posters, T-shirts and funky hats
and drove her to another town
where I left her.
Then, as if it were just another day,
I drove home without her.
I stand now at the door to her room,
my eyes lingering on the scattered belongings,
mostly remnants of her vanished childhood
that she left behind today.
They, like me, are waiting
for her to return.

She’s not that far away.
And I know she’ll be home fairly often
at first,
for birthdays and vacations,
to visit old friends and load up on cookies.
but soon new friends,
summer jobs and study abroad
will become her priorities
and those visits will become fewer and farther between
until this home
isn’t her home
any longer.

"Come and see me baby"
I whisper as I turn off the light,
"Time by time".