Time For A New Poem

Time For A New Poem

By Stephanie Mesler

This is me, writing a new poem because it's time to commit poesy.  I know it is, because it's marked in my day planner.  2 PM on Monday afternoon--- "write a new poem."  It's not even in pencil.  I've inked it in between an appointment with the oncologist and tea with my great Aunt, who will, no doubt arrive on time with a bottle of something sharp to add to the tea, so I'd better get started.  She tells me the poem will be payment for her company.  So I am writing...a poem?...sort of.  Or maybe it's just an essay, a plain old boring essay about how poems do not submit to scheduling, no matter how determined the poet.  But no, this has to be a poem... doesn't it?  Because poems are about fleeting things, thoughts and feelings, colors, and odors...aren't they? Of course, sometimes they are about deep things, like water and philosophy, but in a poem, even broad subjects are to be detailed with brevity.  That's what poems are, or so I was taught -- thoughts expressed or stories told  in the barest bones of language.  It's like building scaffolding around a tower that already exists, then, knocking down the tower, leaving only the framework around it.  The scaffolding is the poem.  A skeleton of sorts that, once, surrounded living flesh.  No, that's not quite right.  The skeleton itself lives.  If I do my job well, it will dance a graveyard jig... which is truly an awful metaphor for a gift I'll offer a 92-year-old who tells me every week the newest poem might be the last poem I write for her.  So, now it's 2:45 and the doorbell will no doubt ring just before three.  I need to lay out the cups and the saucers, the ones with the little hand-painted flowers, and the silver spoons, the assortment of teas in many flavors, a bowl of real sugar cubes, and a pitcher of milk.  No one will touch the sugar or the milk, because tea should be drunk black and strong, but I'll put it out anyway, because I was raised by an Aunt who believed in doing things properly and now is not the time to start disappointing her. 

© Stephanie Mesler 2018

Haiku for Christine Blasey Ford

She lit up dark nooks.

Her torch scorched the iron dome.

A nation smolders.

© Stephanie Mesler 2018

The Fat Lady Sings: Voting Yes on Kavanaugh Proves Senators Have No Interest The Just Rule of Law

1. Given Kavanaugh's lack of composure in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senators who vote to confirm Kavanaugh to The Supreme Court prove to US Citizens that they are not interested in finding the *best* candidate to fill an open position, but only in filling the position expediently and without offending the President and The Republican majority.

2. Given Kavenaugh's openly stated contempt for "liberals" in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senators who vote to confirm Kavanaugh to The Supreme Court prove to US Citizens that they are not interested in finding the *best* candidate to fill an open position, but only in filling the position expediently and without offending the President and The Republican majority.

3. A Vote for Kavanaugh Will Make It Clear That The US Government is hostile to its female citizens. It will do this in at least three ways.
A. In choosing to disregard the testimony of one very credible female witness against a man seeking power and failing to seek evidence from other women making similar accusations against the same man seeking power, members of the US Senate prove that they do not believe they are hired by voters to represent these (or any) women.
B. Supporting a Kavanaugh confirmation is the same as supporting an end to Roe V. Wade protections for American women who need abortions. This removes female autonomy over their own bodies. Such a vote proves that members of the US Senate do not believe in female autonomy.
C. Voting to hire a justice who has been accused by several women of sexual misconduct and who has been caught in lies told before the Senate Judiciary Committee proves that the Senate places more value on the words of a proven male liar than the words of any woman. This proves that US Senators have no interest in justice for women.

For these reasons, I urge you to contact any the four Senators still undecided about Kavanaugh. Ask them to vote no on Kavanaugh and to push their Senatorial peers to do the same. There is no rush to fill this open judiciary post and there are many qualified candidates worth consideration for the job.

The Fat Lady Sings: No, I Cannot Agree To Disagree

There was a time when I believed civility required me to find the value in every opinion, to listen for the truth in every vision of our world. I believed friendship did not require agreement on politics or religion. Of course, my closest friends were people with whom I shared the most basic of fundamental values. My friends and I believed in justice and equality and in the right of individuals to pursue happiness in whatever ways best suited them. We were never in disagreement about the basic fundamentals of science and nature. We all agreed the world was round, that the Earth was not the center of the universe, that sunrise would follow night every single morning.

I was pretty idealistic back then and believed with all my heart that all people were essentially good. I thought that purest evil was a construct for fiction and the politics of people long since dead or still alive, but living far away from my comfortable American life. It never occurred to me that evil was real, that it existed in the places I visited every day, and that it had always been there.

Sure, sometimes -- frequently, even -- I found myself in disagreement with people I met. We might have differed about politics (Was Nixon a crook or wasn’t he?) or religion (Was virgin birth literally true or wasn’t it?). These differences often led to interesting and informative discussions. Once in a while someone’s opinion was changed, more often not. Still, I always felt I gained something by listening to the opinions of those who saw things differently than I.

It really wasn’t that long ago that I could argue passionately for my opinion -- discussions about the Iraq wars come immediately to mind -- and the person on the other side of the issue could argue just as passionately for hers. We could even raise our voices, angrily disputing the opposing viewpoint and, still, after hours (or days or months) of disagreement, remain friends. We disagreed, but our commonly held values kept the chasm from opening so wide between us that it could never again be crossed. We could agree to disagree.

Now, in the era of fundamentalist politics, I find that there are people in this world with whom I cannot just agree to disagree. I find that, where issues of basic civil and human rights are concerned, I cannot make nice with those on the other side of the vast divide that separates rational people from the hateful lunacy of those who would see some others subjugated. I cannot have a friendly disagreement with someone who believes women should “lay back and enjoy it” when raped and certainly shouldn’t try to ruin the careers of powerful men who commit rape. I cannot smile over the Thanksgiving turkey with anyone who believes my queer friend should submit himself to torturous therapy in order to become something he is not. I can’t exchange friendly holiday greetings with those who believe black men really deserve to be imprisoned at higher rates than all other populations or who think torture is a fine way for a government to treat foreign prisoners. I can’t look the other way when someone tells me they don’t believe all children deserve to be fed and housed and clothed and treated with gentle respect, no matter who their parents are.

Maybe the tension in my neck and shoulders would go away, if I could just agree to disagree. Maybe I’d feel more accepted in the conservative community in which I currently live. I might be able to relax again with some family members from whom I have had to step away. I do miss them. Or, perhaps, I miss the people I once thought they were. Maybe those people never really existed.

No, I can’t just agree to disagree. The fact is that some issues really are too clear cut for compromise. Racism is wrong. Misogyny is evil. Science is true. All people come into this world equal and should remain equals as they grow. No one has the right to take away the humanity of anyone else.

I can’t just agree to disagree and that’s why my circle of friends has shrunk in recent years.

Video: The Amazing Shrinking White Boy

The Amazing Shrinking White Boy

The Amazing Shrinking White Boy
For CBF and Her Army 2018
by Stephanie Mesler


You cannot bring me to my knees,
grateful to be heeled.

You won’t teach me my place with a
kick and a laugh - I won’t be trained.

Your hand on my mouth cannot silence me.
I bite and you bleed.

You think you’ve won the world,
just by being born white and male,
with a lifetime membership to the club.

You think you are the main act,
When, really, you’re just a sideshow freak,
The Amazing Shrinking White Boy,
Too drunk with privilege to see me rise.

You are blind with arrogance,
deaf to the roar of the army behind me, coming to end your reign.

In the end, you are nothing,
Not even a footnote in the history of the universe.
You will return to dust, forgotten.

You’re not the strong one.
You’re just loud.
And puny.
And scared.

I am the one who crawled back from hell
to tear off the mantle you wear to hide your frailty.
It’s not even yours; you stole it,
like everything else you ever wanted and took without asking.

I am the one who will clean up your mess and take away your keys.
I will end you once and for all.
Move along, little boy.
There’s no place for you here.

© Stephanie Mesler 2018

WIP Update: Foremothers Morphing

The play is changing its mind about what it wants to be.  Again.  I am reminded by a friend, who has talked me off the proverbial wall more than once, that this is par for the course.  Still, I sort of wish my current project would settle into it's final form.  I have set an October 18 deadline for completing a first draft.  That date rapidly approaches and I am starting to get the shakes.  Yes, I know, it's a self-imposed deadline, but I have learned that ignoring a deadline -- any deadline -- leads to complete inertia and creative chaos. 

Ironically, the play seems to be taking me back where I started with the idea back in 1994.  Yes, that's right -- 1994.  Some projects take a while to push their way to the front of the writer's assembly line. 

Following is a very brief sample of the work in progress. 
______________________________________________________________________

Hagar:  Abraham was your husband!  He loved you. He chose you and he chose your son over mine.

Sarah:  Did he?

Hagar:  You know he did.

Sarah:  He never laid Ishmael upon an alter and raised a blade above him.  (The word, God, should be said with some contempt.) That was my son he would have slain because his God commanded it, not yours!  It was never yours he wanted to destroy. How can I possibly know that he loved my son or myself?

(There are a few beats of silence while Sarah’s words are absorbed.)

Keturah:  Well, I know.  I was there after you were gone, Sarah.  I watched Abraham grieve. He was my husband then, but it was you for whom he wept.  I was with him in Hebron when he laid you to rest. He loved you and he loved your son. (Ket turns to face Hagar)  He loved you, too, Sister. Sarah was not wrong about that, though I don’t believe he ever meant to choose you over his wife.

Hagar:  Of course not.  I was his slave.

Keturah:  (sadly) You were.

(Sarah starts to chuckle.  The other women look at her.  The chuckle gradually turns into a laugh.  The other women stare at her.)

Sarah: (laughing) What?    

Hagar:  What on Earth amuses you so?

Sarah:  (still laughing) Abraham!  Us! We all danced around him like sunbirds begging nectar from a lily. But was he worthy? Was he really all that?

This work is © Stephanie Mesler 2018.