I pulled this poem by Ganga White off Facebook about two months ago. Something about it's simplicity, and truth, intrigued me. I could feel it staring through the screen. I could tell it wanted something more from me.
"YO! You think I'm easy, and free?!"
I looked around. "I'm....sorry, are you...talking to me?"
"Are you the guy who was undressing me with his eyes like I'm a piece of meat?!"
"Um....I was reading you."
"BOOM! Then yes I'm talking to you!"
"You don't want to be read? You're a poem."
"Oh, you think that's all poems want? "I'ma give it you good Baaby. Ima give it to you sooo nasssy, and sooo naughty'. Ima read you like I'm your Daddy." You think that's what all poems want?"
"I'm...sorry. I was just....reading."
"I felt you reading me and gettin' all up in me like that. I want to know if you will DO me too? Or are you just talk?"
"Um...I'm confused."
"Really?! When you hear God's voice, when he speaks to you, you have a grip on things? But a poem talks to you, and you want a nap and a juice box? I'll say it again: I...WANT...YOU...TO...DO...ME. DO ME BABY! DO ME!!"
"I think, maybe, that last part was unnecessary? It didn't even rhyme."
"DO ME! Don't just read my message. Allow it to sink in, and if it's a worthy message, if it resonates, or makes you uncomfortable, do it! Make an attempt to live it."
"Oh," I said, "That's where you're going with this. The fishnets confused me."
Chorus of Words
I think most art, in it's highest form, asks us to do something. It's purpose extends beyond the novelty, or intrigue it commands. I think poems like the one written by White want us to admit something about ourselves that we haven't, or won't. I think, at the very least, they beg for an effort.
Art, like White's poem, dares those who hold deep beliefs about how to love better, or how to create peace, or erase hate, or know God to turn those beliefs into action. Art dares us to change our skin, and allow transformation.
When I first read the poem I knew what I needed to do. Two months later, I still haven't done it. I'm just gonna wait a little longer, and enjoy the view as my world collapses. I'm gonna wait until it's my only choice.
"Maybe I can just 'Do You', instead?" I asked the poem between a couple slow, undulating hip thrusts. But the opportunity was already gone.
Transformation coming, ready or not.
It might be as complicated as repairing what I've harmed, or as simple as loving what I had a hand in creating. Most likely, it will be a little of both.
I need to make my apology for the way I've lived.
Days
I recently purchased a book of poetry online that I read in college, and can't forget. It's called The Theory and Practice of Rivers, and it was written by Jim Harrison. It asked me to do something too, that I never did. I need to now.%2B(1).jpg)
Three months in a row now, with no signs of stopping, glancing to the right, an almost embarrassed feeling that the river will stop flowing and I can go home. The days, at last, are stacked against what we think we are. Who in their most hallowed, sleepless night with the moon seven feet outside the window, the moon that the river swallows, would wish it otherwise?"
That one, single line of poetry has been a resident in my head since I first read that poem 25 years ago.
"The days are, finally, stacked against what we think we are."
Time has the advantage. As the days get fewer all that's left is the admission. It becomes clear that we'll never know who we are, and the best we can do is accept the parts we hoped to transform.
I'm ready to admit that I have no idea who I am, or who I've been. I'm beginning to accept that the man I am is the man I'll always be. My home is what's beneath my feet. My boundaries are the ones I create. My expanse is the one I agree to occupy.
All the things I wanted, and pursued, were ghosts. The only purpose they had was allure. The definition I've sought all my life, the definition that my Father, and my brothers, could never provide, arrived in the shape of my uncertain journey.
Now that I have less than I've ever had, now that I'm willing to let go of the roles I played, and the spaces I claimed, I have the definition I desperately needed. I can finally say I know what it means to be a Man.
Dead Again
"Life, this vastly mysterious process
to which our culture inures us
lest we become useless citizens!
And is it terrible to be lonely and ill?
she wrote. "Not at all, in fact, it is better
to be lonely when ill. To others, friends,
relatives, loved ones, death is our most
interesting, our most dramatic act.
Perhaps the best thing I've learned
from those apparently cursed and bedraggled
Indians I've studied all these years
is how to die. Last year I sat beside
a seven-year-old Hopi girl as she sang
her death song in a slight quavering
voice. Who among us whites, child
or adult, will sing while we die?"
causes us to abandon what's
We're just paint on a palette. All of us. Some ride the brush of Michelangelo, while others are spilled on a kindergarten floor. If we find ourselves on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel we're convinced the Universe got it right, and that's where we belong.
We are only citizens of a Homeland because the cervix we came out of, slept there. I'm not sure anyone deserves poverty, or sickness, because the testicle keeping him warm prior to entry was named Yishi Nanook, and ate whale blubber. All art does is remind us of what we know, and want desperately to forget.
All art does is prance around in fishnets, and dare us to stop pretending.
We are only citizens of a Homeland because the cervix we came out of, slept there. I'm not sure anyone deserves poverty, or sickness, because the testicle keeping him warm prior to entry was named Yishi Nanook, and ate whale blubber. All art does is remind us of what we know, and want desperately to forget.
All art does is prance around in fishnets, and dare us to stop pretending.
