Are the fences finally closing in in the barnyard? Is the Turkey of Mar-a-Lago about to be crushed?

No one is above the law is often bandied about today. Whenever a pundit makes this claim, I feel like laughing. (One time I actually did.) Trump--and so many others--have been above the law for years. From screwing his employees as a real estate mogul in New York to his illegal removal of classified documents from the White House to Mar-a-Lago, (I invite you to include some of the many examples that occurred in between these two events)--so far the turkey has not been caught. I could mention all the poor people who are languishing in jail due to marijuana possession, while wealthy abusers of more dangerous drugs continue their illicit habits; I could mention the overburdened court-appointed lawyers who often fail their clients miserably, but I won't. Let's stick to the subject at hand--Why is the turkey still flaunting his wattle before a gaggle of lilywhite  flightless fowl? Today, the barnyard, tomorrow the world?

Let us not insult turkeys any further. Trump is a very flawed human being, a pathological narcissist. He cannot live without praise. The worst insult for him is to be called a loser. He is extremely needy. Deep down--perhaps very deep down--he knows what he is, a sad fact which he cannot accept. He has convinced himself so well that he can do no wrong and has been able to convince others as  well, which has done great damage to the nation. Too bad he isn't also pathologically shy!

His tragedy is thinking he's Louis XlV; his tragedy is that he doesn't realize that the era of Absolute Monarchy is over.  L'état c'est moi, he seems to be telling himself. Lui? He has no idea what a democracy with its checks and balances is; he is that ignorant. 

I sometimes feel sorry for him; he is obviously mentally ill. My pity would be justified, however, if his arrogance was burned out of him by his disease. But he apparently doesn't know how sick he is. 

Look at his face. 

In a way, Trump can't help it. His extreme narcissism cannot accept loss. He has convinced himself that he won the last election, and is willing even to suspend the Constitution to thwart the will of the voters. He is as needy as a giant sandworm of Arrakas is voracious. The pundits are wrong to say that he is lying. Deep down there he might know he lost, but this knowledge must be erased from his consciousness as readily as the knowledge of death is erased from our minds during sex. If he realized who he was, he wouldn't survive unless he became a truly penitent monk. Fat chance for that!

His father apparently taught him, drilled into him, pounded into him, that winning is everything; the worst thing possible is to fail, to be a loser. (How I delightfully imagine the crowd at a rally, finally realizing that not only the emperor has no clothes but he is ready to take the shirt off your back and let you freeze from the cold. Empathy and Donald go together like apple pie and strychnine. 

As a student of physics, I have serious doubts whether free will exists or not, so it might not be all his fault. It's as if his father cut off his legs and we expect him to walk.

He doesn't walk; he pushes around those who know his number until he finds his lying voice in his reflection telling him, You, Sir, are Number One. (He just may be one digit off.)_

Note: the writing  of this essay has been interrupted by Covid.  My wife and I, both fully vaccinated, have contracted Covid, possibly from a patient at her office. We are both still quite symptomatic.

So let me get this essay out of the way, so I can focus on recovering. I wish to conclude by making two points.

1. The sympathy we might feel for a mentally ill person must be tempered by the harm the mentally ill person does. Trump has put our democracy in danger, so sympathy is out of place until he no longer has power and influence.

2. Trump may not be able to act responsibly, but what about the scores of Republican representatives that have made Trumpism possible? They know that a large part of their base consists of ardent Trump supporters, so they go along with Trump's idiocies, even though they know better. What good is losing your soul in order to maintain power? If the choice is dedication to the Constitution or dedication to self-interest, most Republican representatives have chosen the latter. This is a sad--and dangerous--option.

When the walls are closing in, you can expect an insane, inane reaction. Perhaps Trump's inner angel is beginning to  realize that his outer devil's assertion that he is a 'stable genius' is a  lie. Don't expect an apology! As Trump's inner cookie crumbles, expect more desperation, more craziness, and that's what we got. I'm referring, of course, to his 'major announcement' that he is initiating and hawking Superhero NFTs, When I first heard about this, I thought it was a joke. He asserts that he is, that is was, a better president than Lincoln or Washington. He asserts that America needs a Superhero, then presents a series of tacky cards which depict him in various superhero roles. Does he think we're a bunch of pimply kids collecting baseball cards on steroids? (Apparently. His base bought them like mad.) Probably the most brazen attempt of self-aggrandizement that he has done to date. He must know that the cathedral his vanity has built, in which he is the living god, is crumbling. Let's hope he is right.

Enough said. Time to concentrate on my own fever,  a Covid fever--Too bad there's no medicine,  effective as aspirin, to reduce the fever of fascism!

Now that I'm infected, time to give Covid a chance to write a poem.

 

Covid Talks Back

 

I just want to survive

(What about him? Let him sleep.)

BTW, I don’t do metaphors:

I really don’t want anything,

You’re the guys who think.

 

Maybe I came from some bloke

In the gym, maybe a patient’s

Cough, three moist shakes

From an unwashed hand,

Whatever: veni caecus vinci.

 

In a few days this little virus

Infected, as it were, Afghanistan

(All right, I do do metaphors)

A body, a country much larger

Than I –Not bad for an enemy

Only half alive! If I could, I’d feel

Proud as a Nazi in Poland.

 

One measly strand of RNA

Managed to lower

His oxygen level to 89

A little bit more and he’d die

I’d have to die with him of course

What comes alter that

Who knows?  Not  I

Without woofs to wake him up

I’m part of no god’s clean-up crew

A mercurial, unconscious,

Insidious dog.

 

The poet stirs cough cough

 

He’s had his vaccinations

Too bad   Expect more poems

Until the day he dies   How sad—

He’s going to survive.

What is the source of prejudice?

What is the source of prejudice in all its deadly forms? Why does something so bitter to so many taste sweet to so many others? Why do we  continue to spike our daily bread with sprinklings of a moral equivalent of fentanyl? It is a dangerous drug; in small doses it can provide a high that provides a patina of belonging over layers of painful self-doubt; in larger doses, it renders the addict mad with hate and violence, the destructive potential of which has so many horrible examples in history--including recent history--so that anyone, recalling the potential for humanity for good, must hang his or her head in shame. Where did all this hate come from? I will provide three reasons with the caveat that I am no scholar; a wiser person than I might be able to provide a much more accurate list.

1. Evolutionary History

Human beings haven't changed much in the past 100,000 years, a very long time compared to an individual's lifetime, but a mere blip on the evolutionary scale. Nearly all of this time, except for the past 12, 000 years or so, human beings have been hunter-gatherers. For such a lifestyle, in-group cooperation is essential. This  cooperation perhaps developed into kindness, even compassion, for fellow hunter-gatherers  of a specific group, even extending to those less able than others. (There is evidence for this.) Concern for others, however, apparently did not extend to those of other groups. (Once again, there is evidence for this: skeletal remains of hunter-gatherers indicate that there was a lot of warfare going on; it is reasonable to assume that these injuries arose  during warfare between  groups.)

What I conclude from this is that in-group acceptance and hostility to 'the other' is a strong part of our evolutionary inheritance, and one of the chief sources of prejudice.

2. Psychological Benefits

If prejudice didn't provide a benefit to those poisoned by it, it would have died out long ago. There is no doubt that prejudice can provide a psychological boost to the psychologically wounded. (In many cases however, the boost often turns out to be the poisoned  tunic of Nessus, able even to bring down a hero.)

It is not difficult to come up with a list of second prejudice provides. The affected individual, feeling inadequate, says to himself, 'At least I am not that.' The classic case of prejudice, both here and around the world, is racism. (Another classic manifestation of prejudice is gender discrimination. These examples are alas! not exhaustive.)

I am pushing eighty. When I was young, racism, duh, was much more widespread than it is now. There were, back then, virtually no integrated neighborhoods. My family, composed of Indian, Black and Whites, would have been illegal in the 50s and 60s. The vast majority of the whites in the community into which I was born (Jersey City, New Jersey) didn't realize that the United States had a horrible race problem; out of sight was out of mind. I grew up in all-white schools. When I attended high school, a large urban high school, blacks were present, but might as well have been on Mars as far as white students were concerned. There was very little mixing, and, as I remember, the vast majority of black students were in vocational programs, and thus segregated from college-prep students such as myself. When I went to Germany on a Junior Year Abroad program, there were many females, but no minority students. Even at college, there were few minority students. Who can estimate the damage done by suppression of opportunities for those who had above-average abilities? Those with below-average abilities undoubtedly suffered even worse.

It is relatively easy for segregated white communities to project negative traits onto those who were forced to live 'on the other side of the tracks.' 

It is clear that there is no difference among races regarding innate abilities. Skin color is the product of at least ten genes; skin color also came late in evolution. A scientist at the Max Planck Institue in Leipzig, Germany, fairly recently, was able to map the genome of a Neanderthal, which could enable scientists to clone our distant cousins back to life. There was even a woman who agreed to carry the Neanderthal fetus to term. We can be grateful that this hasn't been done. We can't even get along, on the whole, with fellow humans who don't look exactly like us; can you image the problems that would arise if persons of  different example of humanity lived among us? We must remember that what we call race today is a social construct--The Amhara of Ethiopia, the Celts of Ireland, and the Tutus of Rwanda  all belong to the same race--the human race. This fact, again alas! is not widely accepted, to the detriment of humankind. Why? Primarily because it gives one group the psychological advantage of feeling superior to another. This 'advantage' is, however, a false friend, destructive to minorities and destructive to majorities as well.

Summary: Racism is still with us! Let us all work together to diminish its influence everywhere!

The Sustain Pedal, Poems by Carol Jennings

 

                                                The Sustain Pedal, Poems by Carol Jennings,

                                                Cherry Grove Collections, 2022

                                               ISBN 9781625494009

Carol Jennings’s The Sustain Pedal is a very beautiful collection of poems that deserves a wide reading. Poetry and music have sustained her during her long life—she is a year older than I am--and this collection is a culmination of a life passionately lived.  She is very musical; it’s as if her poems are accompanied by the haunting melodies and rhythms of Chopin and those of other composers, with the pitiless metronome of time in the background, the latter ending in total stillness. Her language is musical as well, as this excerpt from the poem, All Hallows’ Eve, indicates: 

 

Because of tilt of earth and angle

of sunlight, autumn crisps and curls

across summer’s fading fullness

in its unrelentling passage.

 

One of the themes of her poetry in this autumnal collection is revealed in this, and in many other passages as well: the fleeting duration of human existence, the indubitable fact that our time on earth is brief and that the clocks of our hearts will soon by stopped by death. For instance, the brevity of our lives, here compared to the near-infinite lifespan of the visible universe, is clearly demonstrated by the last two lines of the poem Clairvoyance:

I don’t mind a slight blur while standing at a canyon’s edge

              to count rock strata that reveal the brevity of my time

 

To look across an unpolluted sky that proves

             the slight measure of my place in the dust

 

Notice the adjective my in my time and my place; all the poems are personal, an intimacy uncloaked by generalization. Although biographical material is scattered throughout, it is used by the author merely as material to construct noteworthy poems; the poems are not confessional poems.

 

2.

I would like now to discuss two poems of the collection, Ultima Thule and Russian Dream.

One of my favorite poems of the collection, Ultima Thule, illustrates Jennings’s method of composition. She writes primarily to please herself; the content of her poems is always filtered through the alembics of the sine qua nons of writing good poetry. First of all, the language used must be clean and pleasant on the ear. Second, the poem must convey a poetic meaning, not necessarily a logical, prosaic one. All poets must comply with the first rule; regarding the second, language poets such as Wallace Stevens, compose poems the meanings of which can be quite ambiguous. Jennings, like most modern poets, follows both principles. Her language is clean, but the gist of the poems can almost always be summarized in prose. Let us now quote the poem Ultima Thule in its entirety.

 

On the icy fringes of

a solar system we call ours,

your two spheres melded

In soft collision. Bright scarf

circles the point of contact

so you resemble a lopsided

snowman, look not unfriendly

as caught in photos by

spacecraft hurtling to reach

outer edge of the Kuipfer Belt

before burning out.

 

I look at three quarters of a century,

measured in revolutions

around the sun, a few lines

written, adagios on the piano,

ancient ruins entered, dreams

that twist dark reality,

the deaths that keep coming.

On Mauna Kea, the Milky Way

seems to wrap itself around

our lonesome minor planet,

where I have never felt at home.

 

Ultima Thule, you will be

among the last to melt

as our star expands in death throes.

Your name meaning

place beyond the known—

I want it to be yours alone.

This poem is a good illustration of what I mean by stating that Jennings writes to please herself. (Like so many poets of quality, she has, I imagine, given up the drive to become famous: The vast majority of poets with strong name recognition are, for the most part, dead.) She wrote this poem, I assume, shortly after the NASA flyby of the minor planet Ultima Thule, now known as Arrokoth. One cannot assume, without footnotes, that the average reader would know that Ultima Thule is a tiny binary rock in the Kuipfer belt, 4 billion miles from the Sun; the most distant object in the solar system at the time of its discovery in 2014. As Jennings explains, the two spheres joined together by a “soft collision;” a “bright scarf” between them records their ancient contact. Who would have known, without a google or two, that the rock literally looks like a lopsided snowman? (Supplying footnotes  is not a very aesthetic thing to do.) The derivation of the term Ultima Thule is as follows: Ultima, Latin for farthermost, is combined with Thule, a mythical land beyond the borders of the known world.

The second stanza of the poem adds dark, personal material. The poet is now seventy-five years old; what has she accomplished? A few lines written--She is being very modest here, darkly self-critical; she has written remarkable poetry. Most poets, however, at least occasionally, feel as lonely and isolated as Ultima Thule; the cold rocks of the Kuipfer Belt scattered around it, blindly obeying the laws of physics, hardly constitute an audience, She favors playing adagios on the piano, no major-key allegro con brios for her, who has never felt at home on our 'lonesome minor planet,’  compared with a distant, cold  dead rock, billions of miles away. She is of course unfair both to herself and to the marvelous planet on which she resides; however, she is being true to her feeling at the time she wrote this poem; mastery of craft and raw feeling might make a sad poem, but a genuine poem nevertheless. In the last stanza, she refers to the time when our sun will expand, about four billion years hence; having long since obliterated the Earth, Ultima Thule will warm up and be among ‘the last to melt.” The last line turns the poem on its head, which good last lines have been known to do. I interpret it to mean that she would like the place beyond the known to be reserved for Ultima Thule alone, that is, the ambiguities and many pains of existence on Earth would be resolved.

A memorable poem.

The second poem which I have chosen for more detailed analysis is Russian Dream, which I will now quote in its entirety.

I dream myself

In St. Petersburg,

a city I have never seen.

The time fifty years

before I am born,

and the Pathétique is débuted,

led by the composer

just nine days before

his mystery death.

I am pulled into the lyric

of dolorous descent

in his second theme,

as I have been every time,

since I heard it

first at age ten.

When the end comes,

and the pulsating cellos

fade into stillness,

I want to tell him—

before I am forced

to leave the dream

for my own life—

that I know

he was not free to love,

and I am sorry.

 

One of the reasons I was chosen to review this marvelous collection is because I am a poet and an amateur musician as well; unlike many readers, I understand all the musical references that occur throughout the book. That she felt ‘Pulled into the lyric/ of dolorous descent/ in his second theme’ (in his sixth symphony), says a lot about Jennings’s character. Those deeply affected by music will instantly understand what the poet is referring to. Tchaikovsky, as demonstrated by the wistful theme Jennings is referring to, had an extraordinary gift for melody; he was , however, a very unhappy man, a fact which comes across in his hyperemotional symphonies. In the fourth symphony, we hear the rhythm of fate which crushed the composer; in his final symphony which Jennings refers to, the feelings of melancholy, self-pity and resignation come across hauntingly. The melody Jennings refers to is one of Tchaikovsky’s most beautiful; the emotions that come across, at least for this listener, is a sad coming to terms that life has turned out, to put it mildly, not the way he would have liked it; a very sweetly poignant farewell to life comes across as well. The last seven lines of the poem are very revealing. She leaves the ‘dream’ (sometimes more like a nightmare) of her life to tell the composer, that is, telling herself as well, that she knew, due to nineteenth century constraints and the melancholy nature of the man (there are indeed a near-infinite number of ways to become melancholy in this life) that Tchaikovsky was ‘not free to love’—hints of determinism, the lack of free will, even self-hate for not being what one’s ideal image wants one to be, are revealed here.

When I was trained in poetry, I learned about the importance of the last line in a poem, which summarizes the entire poem often with a jolt of surprise. The last line here is excellent; Jennings is sorry for the composer, but really is sorry for herself and the sadness of her life as well. She, like the great composer, has lived a life with many regrets. Sure, we might have preferred a more mature Bach or Mozart reference, but the expression of a negative emotion in a successful poem is a triumph, nevertheless.

3.

The theme of the book is the evanescence of life, the brevity and tragedy of human existence; this is partially countered by beauty, specifically, the beauty of music. Music, however, exists in time; even Wagner operas come to an end. The chief metaphor of the book, present in its title, is the sustain pedal. The sustain pedal permits notes to be sustained by removing contact from the dampers on  strings for the duration that the pedal is pressed. It gives one a very brief experience of permanence. As she writes in “A Flickering Light,” the first poem of the collection:

The way a flickering light

can trick the eye to see it

as a constant, and knowing

this may be the antidote

to everything.

I hold, however, that there is more to life than the illusion of permanence which a flickering life under certain circumstances affords. For instance, in a poem by Harvey Lillywhite, the ‘Flickering light’ becomes a button; the poem concludes with the following lines;’ I’ll know/ How to hear when you call/A last  time to promise/to deliver the one button I own/ to your unfathomable wardrobe.” What’s missing in Jennings’s poems is cosmic connection. The universe might be near-infinite, while humans are very finite indeed. But the fact that we’re the only known species in whose finite brains fits, as it were, at least as a concept, the entire universe. This paradox can provide a source of wonder.

The cover of the collection gives us a view of the pedals of a piano much as a child would see it. Jennings’s poem, ‘Year of My Birth.’ concludes with the following lines: ‘I crawled under the grand piano,/where Mother played her homage/to a more romantic time,/ watched her right foot depress/and release the sustain pedal/ again and again.’

She used the sustain pedal to sustain the song of the flickering light of human existence. This provides a consolation, which, however, like everything else in Jennings’s view of things, soon comes to an end.

The lack of a cosmic philosophy, however, doesn’t detract from the beauty and poignance of most of the poems.  Though I do my best to resist, not always successfully, the negative aspects of life, I have a great affinity for Jennings’s poetry and her aesthetic. At best, her poems, with the help of the sustain pedal, transform the flickering light of human existence into great poetry, not a mean achievement. This is a remarkable collection.
 

The Life and Death of Richard ll, a Play that Warns of the Dangers of Solipsism

I have been fascinated by Shakespeare’s Richard ll; it might not be one of his best plays, but it is certainly not one of his least. Furthermore, Shakespeare has a lot to tell us about life in this play. I remember reading a book review, long ago, about important life lessons that one can glean from Shakespeare’s works. This, in addition to his poetry and his ability to create characters that seem more real and nuanced than those we encounter in life, is an astounding achievement.

“The Life and Death of Richard ll” is not only aesthetically pleasing, as we shall see. Richard (1367-1400) was deposed and murdered by Bollingbroke, who assumed the title of King Henry lV after Richard’s assassination.

Richard is referred to several times in the play, especially by older men, as having been a wastrel and spendthrift. We are to take this for granted, for we see little evidence of Richard spending lavishly on himself. In the play, Richard raises money for a ‘patriotic’ reason, namely to fight the Irish wars. How he raises the funds is what eventually does him in. In medieval England there was no bureaucracy, no Internal Revenue Service, to collect taxes. Richard assigned this to individuals who would raise money as they saw fit while taking a cut for themselves. You can imagine the corruption! The poorly selected officials often confiscate the estates of nobles to raise money. In fact, Richard’s confiscation of Bollingbroke’s estate was the source of the rebellion against him. Since the Magna Carta of 1066, the only valid reason for confiscating a noble’s estate was treason. The King’s determination to raise money however he wanted made him a very unpopular king indeed.

Richard was known in the play as in life as an incompetent politician. It is actually far worse than that;  he didn’t even try. Why? Because he believed he was God’s anointed and thus could do anything he wanted, since he believed God was on his side. Here we see a fatal flaw in Richard’s character: he is a narcissist and lacks empathy for his subjects.

Richard: Dear Earth I do salute thee with my hand,
Although rebels wound thee with their horses’ hooves.
As a long parted mother with her child
Plays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting,
So weeping, smiling, greet I thee , my earth,
And do thee favor with my royal hands,
Feed not they sovereign’s foe, my gentle earth...

Act 3:2 lines 7-12

 

This is Thomas Hobbes, whose book, Leviathan, published in 1651, contained the classic formulation of the divine right of kings, on steroids. Richard believed that God would always protect him, no matter what he did:

 

The breath of worldly men cannot dispose
The deputy elected by the Lord.
For every man that Bolingbroke hath pressed
To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,
Heaven for His Richard hath in heavenly pay
A glorious angel. Then, if angels fight,
Weak men must fall, for heaven still guarda the right…

 

Act 3:2 lines 51-57

 

Shakespeare was of course writing for his times, and not intending to present an accurate depiction of medieval England. Trial by combat, was considered to be just because God would not permit an unjust man to defeat one who was telling the truth. Such a view, which plays an important part in the play, was rapidly going out of fashion in Shakespeare’s time. That Richard’s total conviction that God is on his side, without his having to pay attention to worldly events, leads to his ruin--an important lesson of the play.

As the play progresses, Richard’s impending defeat and doom become more and more inevitable. This has a paradoxical effect on Richard; he becomes more eloquent. When Richard’s world collapses, he loses the very foundation of his pride. In other words, he was a Sun once, now he’s a flickering taper. Richard seems to relish this role and becomes a veritable and eloquent master of self-pity. If God no longer will defend him, he will not defend himself. He passively accepts his fate. When a narcissist loses the image he has of himself, what is left? Nothing.

Richard: No, nor no man’s lord. I have no name, no title—
No, not the name was given me at the font—
But ‘tis usurped. Alack the heavy day,
That I have worn so many winters out
And know not now what name to call myself.

 

4:1 lines 248-252

How needy are narcissists! Without the crown, he considers himself to be nothing. He counts his life in winters; even in his spring, deep down there he knew it was winter. If he can’t have it all, he has nothing at all. He wallows in his misery:

Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs,
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,
Let’s talk of executors and talk of wills—
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath?

 

Just before he is murdered, Richard says the following lines:

Thus play I in one prison many people
And none contented. Sometimes am I king,
Then treason makes me wish myself a beggar,
And so I am; then crushing penury
Persuades me I was better when a king,
Then I am kinged again. And by and by
Think that I am unkinged by Bollingbroke,
And straight am nothing. But whate’er I am,
Nor I nor any man that but man is
With nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased
With being nothing.

5:5 lines 31-41

Poor Richard! He is locked within his own imagination. He is unable to seek allies, which a politician must do. Others he sees as dwelling in himself, the mark of a true solipsist.

Earlier in the play, forced to give up his crown, Richard concocts an elaborate monologue, full of self-pity. This scene was removed from the First Folio, since the depiction of a king giving up his crown was apparently thought to be too controversial.

Richard, when he was king, would have agreed with Louis XIV, who famously said, “L’etat, c’est moi!” Louis, however, carefully silenced any potential rivalry to his throne first, something that Richard, convinced that God was his ally, never bothered to do. With God on your side, who cares if you’re unpopular? When Bollingbroke proved that Richard’s belief was a fantasy, his house of cards collapsed. The only things left in his hand, as it were, were a Joker and the Ace of Spades.

My two favorite lines of the play are as follows. The first is spoken by Richard in his final monologue: "I wasted time, now doth time waste me." Although this might sound like regrets one might have in old age, one mus recall that Richard was only in his early thirties at the time of his death. The other favorite quote is spoken by an older and wiser man, York, regarding Richard: “Comfort’s in heaven, but we are here on earth.” When we are guided solely by fantasy; when we lack the ability to forge and maintain mature relationships; when we are unable to love,  we are in danger of ending up like Richard. A rich inner life is cold comfort to one who is locked within his own psyche.  

Shakespeare’s play is a warning, a portrayal of a deadly mental illness. What is the cure?

Palm Sunday

 For billions of years, predation had been painless.

When bacteria attacked and destroyed

contiguous cells, did small steps up from matter yelp?

Do pseudomonas ever shout, God, I need help?

Confinement in a petri dish is not the same as prison.

Yet if Annabel Lee had been a protozoan

and Poe an average chunk of DNA, would

oceans have produced undulating poetry?

We invent stories. We've also invented the rack,

robots, and divinities. (Do deer ticks need

Torahs to stop them from biting themselves?)

Flagellae are perfect. Which flagellate lacks?

                      

                             --First appeared in STAND, Vol. 20 (2) 2022,

                                            University of Leeds

Commentary

Resurrection is coming. The author better get out of its way forever--fast.

First Word

I, a crumpled-up letter in the breast-

pocket of a dead poet. Physicians

had tried to revive him for a long

time, but earth's medications failed.

Too bad he didn't get beyond that letter.

('Too bad it was discarded.' Who said that?)

Perhaps he had started to write a long poem--

The personal pronoun, a friend once said,

makes for a sorry beginning. No need

to apologize for the vast ivory blankness

that followed. He decided to stop,

crunch (the I) up, die, and start over.

       --First appeared in STAND, Vol. 20 (2), 2022,                        

                                           University of Leeds

 

Commentary

Hasn't the author gotten beyond 'the I' yet? Perhaps not, but he's getting much closer. Nothing like cancer to enable one to become a lot more I-less. Nothing like the threat of Big D Death to scatter the little d deaths--the false prides of wounded existence--like sand crabs scurrying into their holes before the big wave hits.

The tsunami is almost here.  Once I becomes U, Who cares?

In Erinnerung: David Diorio (1925-2022)

Ein Teil von mir starb heute, mit anderen Worten,

ein Freund. Zwei Finger, gleichsam, hängen

steif und nutzlos von meiner Hand: so viele

Finger schon verloren! Trotzdem schreib' ich weiter.

Ein Teil des Lebens ist der Tod, sagte er; also gedeih';

zum Licht- und Schattenspiel des Lebens werden,

selbst wenn du hinkst, lauf' weiter. Denken, Denken,

Denken, Denken, aber den Kopf nicht zerschlagen!

Die Frau von Dave. eine Dichterin, starb im Jahre 1997.

Nach zwanzig Jahren als Witwer, verging er

mit 96 Jahren in seinem Schlaf. Am Tag vorher

wollte ich ihn anrufen, aber ich hab's nicht getan.

Entropie, obwohl immer beschäftigt, war schneller.

Die Zeit verwischte seine Sprache und erschwerte ihm das Gehen,

aber sein Vertand blieb bis zum Ende scharf.

Er liess gute Verwandten und viele Freunde zurück.

Entropies Verplünderungen hatte er akzeptiert.

Trotz allem geht das Leben weiter;

das Licht auch, betonete dieser selige Quäker,

in uns und jenseits, vielleicht auf ewig.

Trotz Leid, trotz Kummer, wollte ich

dass ein Engel käme, um ihn fortzusingen--

Das Kaleidoskop drehte; Stücke verbunden sich.

Alles ist ganz still. Höre ich ihn noch? Ja?

Amor, ein uebertragenes Gedicht von Thomas Dorsett

 Amor

Ah, quell'amor, quell'amor

ch'è palpito, dell'universo,

dell'universo intero...

Schwätzt Alfredo da? Wenn Betelgeuse funkelt,

Es ist nicht aus warmer Liebe, sondern aus kühler Physik.

Des Lebens Geburtsurkunde unterzeichtnete Virtuell;

Der Zufall schreibt uns keine Billets-doux.

Ein weisser Zwerg und eine Neutronenstern

Umarmen sich allmählich--Eine Typ la

Supernova ist aber kein siderisches Sex.

Heisse Jupiters sind nicht launischer

Als Kohlelumpen in einem Ofen.

(Wir hatten einst einen in Jersey City;

Von dem Behälter unter den Treppen im Vorbau

Transportierte ich Kohl für die Flammen;

Die Winter waren kälter damals, aber ebenso gleichgültig

Als Krokusse durch den harten Boden prangten.)

Es ist heiss genug auf Venus um Blei zu schmelzen.

Wenn sie aus verschmolzenen Meeren entstieg

und danach in einem Methansee auf Titan badete,

hätte sie ihr eigenes Fleisch zischen gehört?

Gewiss nicht--Göttinnen existieren nicht.

Liebe möge mit Sternen nichts zu tun haben,

Aber mit Sternen in inneren Himmeln doch.

Dass ein Abgott Dir eine Nachricht aus

Den Tiefen des Weltraums funkelt--unmöglich!

Berühr' sie sanft; wenn sie lächelt, berühr' sie wieder;

Die Liebe ist ein unbeantwortetes Gebet.

Verklaerung, Ein Uebertragenes Gedicht von Thomas Dorsett

Verklärung 

Ich habe immer e i n Gedicht weg

vom Verzweifeln gewohnt. Mich beraten, bitte!

Zuerst ein Schwarzes Loch besuchen, dann die Memoiren schreiben.

Etwas schuf den Kosmos mit gewöhnlichen Mitteln.

Als ich dem Ereignishorizont nähere, wo ist die Singulärität?

Warum des Körpers Unsinn singen, zwölf Steine voll?

Ich musste wissen: also sprang ich tief hinein.

Unwissen ist sterblich! Wie ein dummes Elektron

Wurde ich absorbiert. Guten Tag! Gute Nacht.

Verklärung. Bist Du nicht froh, dass Du verschwandst?

Wer würde glauben, dass ich durch ein Wurmloch entkam,

Um auf der anderen Seite zu glänzen? Ich.

                                       Übersetzt von dem  Autor, Thomas Dorsett

Ich Lese Billy Collins Unterwasser, ein Gedicht von Thomas Dorsett

 

 

Oft lese ich Gedichte, um in die Stimmuhg zu kommen, ehe ich selbst ein Gedicht verfasse. So war es  vor zwei Tagen. Ich las in der Sammlung, Sailing Alone Around The Room, von Billy Collins, dessen Werk ich sehr bewundere. Im Gsrten war ich, im Lesen vertieft, als das Telefon klingelte.. Danach vergass ich das Buch und las in noch einer Sammlung von Collins herum. Inzwichen kam ein Platzregen. Den nächsten Tag endeckite ich ein matshiges, unlesbares Buch am Gartentisch. Das wurde zum Theme eines Gedichts, das ich gestern schrieb und das ich eben auf Deutsch übersetzt habe. Hoffenlich ist es Ihnen, lieben deutschsprachigen Lesern, verständlich. (NB, die zweite Strophe besteht aus Gedichtsfetzen, die mir im Gedächtnis geblieben sind.)

                                             Der Dichter Billy Collins

Ich L0.ese Billy Collins Unterwasser

 

Geistesabwesend stellte ich das Buch auf das Guss-

Eisentisch auf der Terasse. Nach dem Platzregen

Ist die Dichtung ein matschiger Sumpf.  Man müsse

Regenbõgen lesen kõnnen um sie zu entziffern.

 

Fürbass barfuss auf die Atlantik;

Emily Dickinson mit Ehrfurcht entkleidet;

Romane und Telefonapparate; Kirschwasser,

Sex, und die Zinken einer Gabel.

 

Jede Zeile schien mit ‘Vergessen!’ zu enden

Und mit ‘ich kann mich nicht erinnern’ zu beginnen.

Schnõrkel und Úberreste von Buchstaben

Beschmutzten des Palimpsests Milch.

 

Kannst Du Sailing Alone Around the Room

Noch gut lesen? Nein? Dann nimm

Des Dichters Rorschach-Test—Schon wieder

Schlágt die Kunst so reizend fehl.

 

Today's Poem: Radiation and the Rose of Sharon

 

Nothing cures insomnia like radiation.

After 30 sessions of IMRT, I’m tired by noon,

Exhausted by three, and asleep by 10. (Won’t mention

Incontinence. Can’t write a poem about that!)

 

In spite of it all, I’m ridiculously

Happy. A Rose of Sharon’s

Splendid vulnerability is enough.

Majesty doesn't survive? In a while

 

All that’s left is a pale green fist

Clenched below where beauty was--

Flora shall return spectacularly dressed!

(Perhaps not. Nevertheless.)_

 

Although flowers become dust,

I’m like a lark freed from a net;

Wings about to die (perhaps later

Than sooner) still thankfully fly—

 

Whose eye is on the Rose of Sharon?

Nobody? Somebody who isn‘t/is?

Who knows. The garden is bare now.

Nevertheless, I believe.

                                         Thomas Dorsett

Vicious Narcissus

 I can't pretend to be an expert, but I think I know Trump's number. I've known it for a long time, it is that obvious to me, as well as it is to many others.

Mr. Trump is, in short, a pathological narcissist. The ICD  10 code (the code doctors use for billing) for narcissistic personality disorder is FB60.81, According to this system, the definition of this pathology is as follows: "A disorder characterized by grandiose  beliefs and arrogant behavior, together with an overwhelming need for admiration and lack of empathy for (and even exploitation of) others," Does Trump's malady--and alas! ours-- fit the definition of narcissistic personality disorder? Is the pope Catholic?

Arrogance? Check. Grandiosity? Check. Lack of empathy? Check. Demanding loyalty but unable to give it? Check. Overconfidence? Ruthless? Check, Needy? Check. No core values? Check.

The American Psychiatric Association forbids psychiatrists from diagnosing from afar, that is, without having examined the patient in question. But I'm not a psychiatrist. In my view, if it oinks like a pig, squeals like a pig, wallows in mud like a pig, looks and smells like a pig, it's a pig. 

It seems like the Donald's father was an excellent pig trainer. He taught his son that failure is never an option. Vivas for those who have failed, wrote Walt Whitman. Vivas for those with narcissistic personality disorder? That's not the type of failure the poet had in mind.

We tend to mature with time, with all the successes and failures that time brings. Trump, to say the least, has not matured with time. An arrogant young person is one thing; an arrogant old man is quite another.

One of the characteristics of the effect of time on normal individuals is that it tends to heal past wounds. Youthful hang-ups tend to dissipate, if not disappear altogether. One begins to realize what is really important in life, not fame, not money, but friendships, relationships, and the realization that one is very far from being the center of the universe. 

Not so with those who are seriously mentally ill. I remember during a psychiatric rotation many years ago, coming across a young patient in an asylum--there were such things in those days. He thought he was Napoleon. Another thought he was best friends with Albert Einstein. Another thought she was a biblical prophet. I remember the desperation on her face as she preached to the mentally disabled around her, who tended to ignore her. Where are they now? Mostly dead, I'm sure--this was a very long time ago--but I doubt if any of these individuals had anything approaching a normal life. 

Although less handicapped than those individuals, Donald Trump is every bit as mentally ill as ever. Remember when he insisted that Obama had been born in Kenya and was thus an illegitimate presidential candidate? Remember when the exasperated Obama proved him wrong by making his birth certificate public? Trump reported that he had an influential friend who could prove that the document was a fake, a fact which he would soon make public.

Fast forward seven years, In a rally, Trump said he had a friend who told him he was the most persecuted politician in the history of the United States. Trump, of course, agreed. 

To one who believes that these persons ever existed, one could sell the Brooklyn Bridge.

Trump, that "very stable genius" has no close friends. These two anecdotes were related here to demonstrate that the man hasn't changed a bit.

Narcissists are desperately needy; shouts of admiration are needed to drown out the demons inside--even from those who constitute his base, whom he would otherwise consider to be 'losers'  

Narcissus  had only one core belief, namely that the his deified reflection in the pond was the real thing. (Deep down, he realizes that he is facing indifferent water, and that he is about to drown).

Perhaps Trump is about to drown.  You can get away with egregious lies as a loudmouth private citizen. Eventually insanity in the presidency becomes apparent, as is happening now.

The classic example of his disease  is the crazy insistence that he won the previous election after being soundly defeated. I believe that Trump's psyche could never accept defeat and has come up with this lie to cover up the realization inside that he is, well, a loser.

Trump, I believe, really thinks, due to his illness, that he won the election; if he acknowledged defeat the little mental equilibrium he has would fall apart. What better proof of mental illness does one need.

I can sympathize with Trump to a certain degree; he didn't choose his disease. (The sympathy ends when I think of the damage he has done to the country. Without a trace of schadenfreude; out of a sense of patriotism, I wish attendees of one of his rallies would chant, "Loser, Loser, Lock Him Up!" Perhaps he would then see the light that he is not a first-magnitude star, but an enormous black hole.)

Trump perhaps cannot help but lie and lie to cover up the truth to himself that he is a failure as a human being. But what about the Republicans who support his lies in order to stay in power? They have no excuse except for an immoral quest for power. (The Republicans' toxic manipulation of the masses is playing with fire.)

But that's another story.

The Benefit of Cancer

 In the first Copernican Revolution, the scientific world-view began to triumph--the process is still continuing today. In the West, it is no longer possible for a rational person to believe literally in the bible, for instance, as the ultimate authority; the "facts" of the bible became, well, fictions. The conflict between religious dogma and science came to a head at the time of Galileo. As is well known, the Inquisition  forced hun to recant the scientifically proven view that it was the Earth that revolved around the sun and not vice versa. This was, however, a pyrrhic victory; religious dogmatism among the college-educated has been in retreat ever since.

What I call the second Copernican Revolution is a subjective one. Nearly everyone believes today that the Earth is not the center of the cosmos, but a mere speck in an immensely large cosmos which consists mostly of space. However, many still believe that the cosmos revolves, as it were, around them. The deep realization that this is not so, fatal to egotism, is a personal/impersonal experience called wisdom. Time and egotism eventually must go separate ways; this is called maturity, the greatest benefit of healthy aging. A young man who exhibits untrammeled egotism is one thing; an old person who still imagines himself to be a Napoleon is quite another.

Age is a tool that chisels down the great stone blob of egotism into almost nothing, a wise human being. Once the ego is put into proper perspective, the result is ecstasy, joy. 

I was already an old man when cancer struck; the transfusion of lifeblood from the Ego into the human being was already well on its way. Cancer, a form of approaching death, is now casting out the demons who are left. I am determined to see them all die before I do. This is the benefit of cancer, the title of this little essay.  Let us now turn to a brief discussion of the First and Second Copernican Revolution

The First Copernican Revolution--The Objective One

For over a thousand years, Earth was considered to be the center of the universe, around which all the stars, including the Sun, as well as all the planets revolved. The second-century Greek mathematician and astronomer. Ptolemy, formulated the theory that all heavenly bodies were fixed in afirmament and were eternally unchangeable. As the heavenly bodies rotated around the Earth, they produced the so-called music of the spheres. Ptolemy couldn't resolve the planets' rotations into perfect circles--he was convinced that God chose the mathematical perfection of circular orbits--he devised the theory of epicycles, little diversions the planets had to make in order to maintain their perfect circle-orbits.

This theory remained in effect into the early sixteenth century. True, Copernicus (1473-1542) wrote his famous De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, (On The Revolutions of Celestial Objects) years before, but it was published after his death--Copernicus refused to have it published during his lifetime, fearing the reaction ecclesiastical authorities would have. In this work, Copernicus proved that the heliocentric theory was correct and that the planets rotated in elliptical, not circular orbits. His work, which remained largely unknown, thus offered no challenge to the established Ptolemaic theories.

Then came Galileo (1564-1643). He used the newly invented telescope to discover the four largest moons of Jupiter. He noted that they appeared and disappeared as they rotated around Jupiter, proving that Jupiter was not fixed to a celestial sphere. This had revolutionary consequences.

Let us now turn to Brecht's wonderful play, Galileo. (I will quote from the English translation by Charles Laughton.) At the beginning of the third scene, the audience is confronted with the following words on a placard: June 10, 1610/Galileo Galilei abolishes heaven. The destruction of the Ptolemaic system was the beginning of a new paradigm. The cosmos no longer had human proportions; it was vast and seemingly completely indifferent to humanity. After Galileo has a student visualize the rotating moons of Jupiter, the following dialogue takes place:

Sagredo: Whee is God?

Galileo: Not there! Any more than He'd be here--if creatures from the moon came down to look for him.

Sagredo: Then where is Hee

Galileo: Within ourselves--or nowhere.

The universe, vast in all directions, has no place for Heaven. (In the Ptolemaic system, heaven fit nicely just above the rotating stars.)

Humanity's place in the cosmos was no longer central.

Later on, a cardinal laments the damage the new paradigm will  make to orthodoxy:

Is it conceivable that God would trust the most precious fruit of His labor to a minor frolicking star? Would He have sent His Son to such a place? How can there be people with such twisted minds that they believe what they are told by a slave of a multiplication table?

The biblical story of Joshua is quoted. Joshua requests that God make the moon and sun stand still in the heavens so hr could continue his battle against the Canaanites. God complies. How can the sun stand still in a heliocentric world? Either the bible is wrong as a source of literal truth--there are myriad examples--or scientific discoveries that contradict them are illusory. Guess which side won and continues to win, at least among the well educated.

Past giants such as Aquinas and Augustine were very gifted intellectuals, no doubt about that. But they lived at times well before the discovery of the scientific method, when one didn't have to sacrifice one's intellect  to believe religious dogma as fact. If they were alive today, I am almost sure they would be scientists.

The first Copernican revolution gave us the scientifically corroborated paradigm that the universe is unbelievably vast and indifferent to our needs.

When the scientist La Place was asked by Napoleon as to what place God occupied in his system, re replied, "I have had no need, Sire, of that hypothesis." Today, centuries after the Copernican revolution began, most scientists would agree.

The Second Copernican Revolution--The Subjective One

In a recent article of the New York Times, Gail Collins wrote the following, in reaction to new photos from the James Webb Space Telescope:

Such a jaw-dropping reminder that as self-obsessed as we tend to get, we're hardly the center of the universe.

This is an intellectual insight; most adults come to this conclusion when confronted by the size of the universe. But intellectual insights often don't last, and even when they do, they don't necessarily change behavior. One needs an emotional awareness that one is not the center of the universe. This emotional awareness tends to come with age or, in the case of younger adults, in the last stages of serious illness. A certain amount of self-centeredness is necessary if a young person wants to 'establish himself' in this very competitive world. 

It is relatively easy for a young person to believe in the illusion of self; this becomes much more difficult as one ages. A heathy young person  assumes a significant degree of self-importance; it becomes increasingly difficult for an older person to believe in an inner diamond while choking to death in his own private and increasingly toxic mine. If all works well,  the older person realizes, eomotinally and intellectually, that what is importan in life is not fame, money or even success, but relationships.

As an old man, an emotional awareness that I was not central to anything was already well underway. Contracting cancer has accelerated this process. How can one continue to be vain as death approaches? As we shall see, some persons manage to do just that; this however, is a sign of pathology. A certain degree of self-centeredness is expected among the young; if it persists into old age, it is tragic. I invite the reader to contrast the examples of Jimmy Carter, an avatar of healthy aging, and that of Trump, whose pathological narcissism has shown no sign of abating in his eighth decade of life. 

Egotism can be transcended in only two ways. The first is the emotional realization that everything is connected. An understanding of the universe fosters this perspective. The second way to transcend the ego is though relationships, especially selfless love.  The latter should keep us happily busy until the moment of death.

Once one accepts death, another foundation of wisdom, the vastness of the universe is no longer frightening. The cosmos then becomes a great source of beauty. 

Gaining perspective, the realization and the practice of love and wisdom, is the potential benefit of cancer, the potential benefit of age, the benefit of a full life  despite the difficulties of the aging process; these cannot but help increase one's joy. 

Gaining perspective includes a deep appreciation of the gift of life. Love and wisdom are what make us human; love and wisdom never die.

Too bad that agape tends to be directly proportional to arthritis! Life is amazing nevertheless--Insight; this is why this old man smiles.