My takeaway: “Gestapo” says over-there; “Slave Patrol” says oh, no, right here, right now, just like it’s always been.
Tag: history
Résistance
Resistance is not wearing a pink hat
or marching with a million people
or speaking your dreams
hoping to tame wild beasts.
That’s solidarity, and it won’t work.
Resistance is not trusting love
as the enemy nails beams together.
It is not honesty before Pilate.
It is not true to Self.
Truth is for Jesus, aching to die.
Resistance is silence as you speak lies.
It is saying yes to Christian neighbors
and doing what you can
as you work, as you wait.
It is letting proud boys believe they've won
and their women, that you've found home
as you sow faith and community –
beautiful vines that slowly grow
inch by inch, season by season,
year by year.
Then, then…
when need’s grip snaps grieving sons
and senseless tears, forgotten daughters;
when bereft and lost they reach for
friend, family, husband, wife;
when only hope shields pain
and you stand firmly between
the question and its adjured answer:
then, then remove your mask,
then and only then let it slowly slip
from your always-enraged face —
show them your ageless hate
just once, lonely soldier,
so that as they sink
their departing view
is you.
*
Goals
When I am dead, growing in the ground — assuming the world goes on, assuming they don’t end the world after I’m 80 (or, given my family history, 67) — I want to be: a multiple-choice test option. Think about it! That’s the way to make it. That’s the way to know you matter. Who wouldn’t want to be Archduke Ferdinand? Sure, he’s dead, and sure, his death was…painful. But he is the answer to an important question: “Whose assassination caused the first World War?” He is remembered! The test question, then — that’s important, isn’t it? They say if you don’t ask the right question, you won’t get the right answer. So: “Who is the greatest poet of their age?” That was easy! It just came to me. It’s the way I want to be remembered: not a, but the poet — a poet who moved women to riot and men to tears; who showed desire is way better than thought; the one who gets quoted at weddings and funerals, chiseled on tombstones, printed on birth announcements. The one who freed Literature from the puzzle-makers and the puzzlers. Nobody’s done that yet. Nobody! I’ll be unique! Okay. Calm down. This is the way to go. Take it slow. (I feel so much better now, knowing what I want.) Next...the other test options are important, aren’t they — almost more important than the question. Who do I want surrounding me? Who will share my stage? Another conundrum! So let’s try: A) Sappho B) William Shakespeare C) Walt Whitman D) Greg Beckman That was easy, too. I am good at this! They’ll all select (D), of course — but only after much deliberation. I want them to think, search their souls, argue. You can’t just give silly options, answers easily dismissed like Dylan Thomas or Mitsuhashi Takajo, whose haiku softly hold my whispering heart home, but who Americans confuse with a car; or Thom Gunn, who taught me how to speak honesty but is a cricket-chirp in Catholic schools (that homosexual thing); or Lorraine Hansberry — God! Are they all gay? — the much-taught playwright, right, who didn’t write a stitch of searing raw-nerve I-can’t-get-rid-of-this-thing poetry, right? No. Those options are quickly crossed out. I won’t be a default. I want students to sit at hard-carved desks confounded among the known greats, those who have risen, acceptable contenders — and choose me. Why? Because everybody knows history only enshrines the greats, and that to be remembered — to be studied! — by legions of caring, sensitive schoolchildren and objective, contemplative teachers of story will delight my crusting corpse.
There are more poems. After this romp, I’d try something here.
Or maybe a story….here.
Oxnard Street Poet
Older than the sidewalk cracks and street, settled on his flaking porch, he remembered the Valley when it was trees. “I’m ready to not be old,” he said as I passed by. His eyes were uncommonly blue, for an old man. He said: “They published my poem.” I was on my way to school, about to not stop. “Once I get the book, I’ll read it to you.” * The book cost $49.95. He held up the flyer they sent. But he was proud, so I said nothing. * “Hallo,” he’d say, waving from his chair. “Hello,” I’d say, not wanting to be rude. Lovely day, awesome morning, top of the world, hello, hallo, have a good day. Joe was great-uncle wrinkled, and I had class to get to, I was a Senior. But everyone should talk to a grandpa sitting on a porch. * He asked if I wanted to read his poem. The book was thick with cheap paper. I was late but said yes and the poem was about apples and I didn’t have to make something up. It was worth more than the book. “Do you like it?” he asked. “I want to read it to my English class.” Joe gave me his book. He said to be careful with it. “I never got published before.” * We sat watching cars speed down Oxnard Street, heads moving left to right then back again, ready. * Joe made coffee and I listened to stories. He voted for Roosevelt and Nixon, twice — “bet you no one’ll ever tell you that!” — He didn’t like his grand-daughter. He said I wouldn’t either. “Uppity. Ugliness is inner.” He said if you wanted to get a pothole fixed in LA, put a movie-camera next to it and the mayor would come fill it himself. He so near the end talked to me so near the beginning, said we were bookends on God’s shelf. His hands trembled, so I carried the cups. “That’s what age does, shakes us loose from the inside out.” * The Oxnard Street poet and an uppity kid who learned to listen to words warmed by coffee and care and age.
More poetry here.
Stories? Here.
Greg Beckman 