Peripatetic, Writer, Harbinger of Mirth
A poem by Dr Peuss
When my gut feels bleh
my stable off-kilts
like a broken see-saw
that saws unseen guilt.
How does it saw over and over?
knocking down trunks,
kathunk. kathunk.
i do not like this saddened gut.
i do not like it.
ugh. sad. blut.
And so I say: gut, let’s make nice.
I’ll feed you oats. I’ll feed you rice.
You do your job, I’ll do mine —
and by tomorrow? We’ll feel fine.
And so I eat my daily fiber.
Or else my gut is a poop-miser.
Deep in the woody French suburbs
where none of the English is spoke,
visits an almost-two nugget
whose uncle thinks he’s super dope.
The two wandered round the old city
pointing to blues, reds, and greens
on to the park and the bak’ry
to find food that would satisfy their mien.
His Opa! Is quite a jokester
having said “French cars <hoh hoh hoh>”
and now it is time for his gifting
of breading to stuff in his maw.
The small and the friendly nugget
whose eyes widen big at a grape
after sampling small bits of croissant
says “more?” with his eyes both agape.
No pain au chocolat as yet now
for sugar is not what he eats
but for the next week here near Paris
I reckon he’ll find bread a treat.
A poem on discomfort.
I feel unsettled.
Much of me feels unsettled.
I feel unsettlement in my chest.
What is unsettlement but worry + desire?
But the fear that the thing I want may not occur?
But feeling uncomfortable until the uncomfortable becomes
normal, where it’s not even resolved but the sensation has just lived
there for so long that you get used to it and accept it and forget it exists and
maybe if you had done something a while back to remove it you’d feel okay now but
but
you didn’t.
And you don’t.
So you.
Here.
Pushing forward.
Taking melatonin to help sleep.
Hoping tomorrow you’ll awake without
the pain your chest
and worrying that if you don’t
you’ll be too chicken then
as you were now
to fix it.
John Prine died today. He was my first concert. He wrote every song I love that I don’t remember who wrote. He wrote this poem, too, but he wrote it through me. I’ll miss him. One day I’d like to see him again.
I had a feeling I could be someone.
You’ll only feel by listening
to the same song,
but none better than the downtown boy
with hair like Dylan
accepted to Yale when I was
but dropped out
and now plays to a Farmers’ market audience–
an empty picnic blanket and me.
At 24 years old,
he looks more like twelve
and sings folk like a wizened bluesman.
Will he go anywhere
or stay in Fairfax forever,
wearing the same uncool shoes
as the classmate I bullied in 4th grade.
If America’s misfits come to San Francisco
and SF’s go to Oakland,
where do Oakland’s go?
We’re only fifteen miles north of The City,
but you can believe in the stars having a plan for you
and we’ll still believe in you.
If you move too quick,
you hit the speed of loneliness
like a too-fast car,
breaking the sound barrier,
collapsing into yourself,
emptying out.
We all feel that way.
Some of us become.
We all pass away.
Julian Wise 