Untitled 1 (Letter to Elio)

Elio,

You asked. I thought about this for a bit and didn't want to reply too soon. This is my answer:

How do you cope with biased journalists, bigoted politicians, dismissive educators, and the scurrilous activists that want you to fail and encourage society to have nothing to do with you because of your beliefs?


Your question brought to mind something I had read and could not forget. I will tell you how. You go in knowing that these frustrated SOBs are totally against you and everything that you believe in and stand for, and you are not going to let them get rid of you.

What they have is called hate. That is why they pillory you. Their artists, their jurists, their lawyers, their teachers, and the politics of their so-called doctors of democracy, the whole of their phony, smooth-spoken community cannot rest until people who think like you are driven from your place on the planet.

Every one of them finds themselves stricken with that malady that cannot be cured by doctors. They pass that sickness happily down to their children, and their children are none the wiser for the evil their families, friends, and leaders do to them. If I may paraphrase Alexander Pope, these painted children of dirt, that stinks and stings, have it in for you, but they do not know any better. They were taught to hate you. You must teach your children not to hate them. Stand up and call them to account. Under no circumstances be afraid to accuse their leadership, however you may find them, of being insulting to the point of being criminal.

Don't try to be an activist. Instead, be the poet as you wish. The word activist has begun to smell of the arrogance of those who make a claim for it. I assure you, that you will arrive at a better opinion of yourself by striving to be the poet that you really want to be. I take a dim view of the hypocrisy of activism. Either be an activist or be a poet, one cannot be both. The first always strives to presume upon society, while the latter owns a heart.

When they shout vai al diavolo to you, do not make a comeback with se vai al diavolo. That is what energizes them. The bunnies inside their heads runs on the dead batteries of insult. In any case be determined to make your stand. The flames will flare up for a time, but like all fires your patience will pay off with a steady heat in return. At some future time that no one can predict, their own children will become ashamed of them and denounce them to their faces for their disgrace. Only then will the quieter flames of peace begin to glow, at least with the more reasonable among them, and in spite of their present ignorance.

arrivederci!

Dom Giovanni

MAIN STREET

10:42 am
Late summer.

A dour gravy-gray colored street
in mid-Mannahatta, Amereeka.
A very light, almost imperceptible wind
blows aimlessly, now left, now right.
When it will stop nobody knows.

Trees lift their leafy green arms upward
toward a brazenly blue sky
filled with wispy clouds of pagan white.
A hawk punctures the air
in a rapturous dive for a stray pigeon.

Standing at a corner
littered with cigarette butts,
lottery ticket stumps, discarded political tracts,
and yesterday's faded yellow newspaper pages,
gazing respectively into the camera
of New World News Television,
are Scam Blether and Priscilla Kneeknocker.

"Can you see the motorcade yet, Priscilla?"

"Not yet, Scam. We expect it at any moment."

"Pigs and princesses, there is no sign of the motorcade.
We will keep you informed.
This is Scam Blether reporting all the news
that's news for NWN TV."

"I think I see something now.
Yes, Scam. Yes!
I do see something in the hazy distance."
Priscilla strains her perfectly pearled neck
and peers intently into the horizon.
"It must be...O my god, yes!"

"Pigs and princesses!
I believe that the motorcade
is now coming into view.
What a great day for some
and not so great for others.
This is Scam Blether,
your commentator and reporter
for New World News Television."

"No, Scam, it's not the motorcade.
On closer inspection...yes! It's, it's...yes!
Oh my gosh, no!" Priscilla's face fell.
"It is a prosaic gang
of Middle Amereekan bikers
on an aimless rendezvous
with the bars and blues joints
of mid-Mannahatta"

Clearly, as a journalist, Priscilla Kneeknocker
did not wish to refer further
to the presumed views
of mainstream Amereekan bikers,
out of sync with everything understood by her class,
and whose destination was now her fair city.
She gave the nod to Scam.

"Pigs and princesses, I regret to inform you
that the motorcade is not yet in sight,
but surely patience will pay off.
Even the day is at its best.
We have sunshine [the camera pans the sky],
and above us are sprightly angels of curled clouds
amid the faint odor of a dish of dry prunes.
This is Scam Blether reporting
for New World News Televison."

Night, 11:51 pm.
Slightly over one year later.
Snow falling on blistered concrete.
Scam Blether and Priscilla Kneeknocker of NWN TV
stand shivering in the walnut-dark air.

"Are there any signs of the motorcade, Priscilla?"

"Not as of this time, Scam.
Wait! I think I see something coming now.
Yes! No! Yes, yes! No..."

Quickly Scam cut in.
"Pigs and princesses, this is NWN TV anchors
Scam Blether and Priscilla Kneeknocker
standing by for a moment-by-moment broadcast
of the anxiously awaited motorcade.
We will inform you when it arrives,
for the fate of the world
hinges upon this internationally important occasion.
This is Scam Blether bringing you
New World News tonight."

Owls hoot.
A brisk wind blows the raised bare arms
of the trees in Center Park
in a quick hula left and right
and right and left.
It is a time when television news reporting
is still taken seriously by a great many viewers.
Anticipation is running high.
No one watching the program speaks.
One can almost feel an intense pleasure,
a tingling feeling coursing from the legs
and through the entire body,
in being a part of this unfolding historic moment.

Voiceless shouts of Hurrah! Hurrah!
well up in the breasts of Scam and Priscilla.
They will give a hardy welcome
when the motorcade arrives.
The old boys will cheer and the girls will shout,
the ladies dressed in finery will all turn out,
and every advantageous camera angle
will be used to best effect, no doubt,
when the motorcade comes rolling in.

As a stray lock from Priscilla's
corn-yellow hair blows haphazardly
over one eye in the nocturnal breeze,
she chokes back a tear.
Wearing a boutonniere
of frozen flowers in his lapel,
Scam fixes his fearless blue eyes
upon the camera.
He hardly dares breath he is so excited.
Civilization's ideals are reflected
forever in the firm determined countenance
of this clean-faced fellow.

A band of some thirty or forty
gaily painted Native Amereekan Indians
pass by in the moonlight
toward their brightly lit casinos
stretching the full length of Fifth Avenue.
An old Eyetaliano peers into a sewer grate
across the wide boulevard.
No one knows what he is looking for.
Could it be the bodies
of missing union officials
floating through the dank murk below?
Nobody knows.
The camera slowly focuses
on every shadow playing the street.
A silent thought goes out into the night,
that there is no revelry
among the unscrupulously dead.
The old fellow crosses himself and moves on.

The mood is almost one for an unbroken silence.
A cabbie sits with his head thrown back
on the headrest of his yellow car and snores softly.
The motor is running.
It is cold.
A timid rat scurries from shadow to shadow.
It does not dream or hope or think,
but moves pitter-patter out of sight
into a dark alley.
A youngster's tricycle horn
can be heard booping in the distance.
Scam appears to clear his throat but stops.
Knees knock.



Dom Giovanni
Irish Italian Charivari

April 20, 2009


Note: 11 September 2004