The Battlefield Where the Girls Say I Love You



That's just the thing: we will never tell you we love you. In fact, we're here only to hold hands across state lines and yell at the world. We're here to try to touch you across this chasm of flown things. Not even that. At most, I will teach you how to make a gin smoothie when there's nothing left in the house. Hannah can teach you several languages and what to do when your car breaks up with you. Thanks for coming out.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

oh no.

i don't even know how to preface this one. so, we have this wine tasting at the restaurant yesterday. (hi, it's mamie). the reps leave no less than 50 bottles behind. adam and i fill paper bags silently, reverantly. we go home. we drink on the floor and out of champagne flutes (due to moving). so, this morning: i commute the forty-five minutes to the relatively conservative, private liberal arts college where i teach (okay, okay, i also went to school there). i commence to speaking about duende, lorca, about the internal bullfight, true investigation. society urges us toward indifference... i begin quoting from an e-mail jack sent our friend, sally: it is not enough to defend goodness; as artists, we must create the good. he concludes, i think, by suggesting we all put poems inside our days. it's beautiful.
i'm sweating. i've taken up the blackboard. my right eye is twitching due to sleeping for a week in my contacts. i've said without saying what i think about all who govern this country, but i have also said what a beautiful nation it is indeed. indeed! i am using the word "indeed" without thinking twice. the lecture is whitmanesque. it is wonderful and terrible. i stop. i'm hungover and have lost my mind. i take up their poems that are due today.
i notice that one student's has a color photograph scanned at the top of the page. it's of george bush. and he's waving. WAVING at us, at me, at the reader. i'm annoyed, but i think it must be ironic. it's not. it talks about freedom wafting through the air. i don't touch it, just stare at the student then back down at the thing. i say, this isn't poli-sci multimedia power point class. he blinks.
anyway. crushed.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

one of the kids waiting for the bus this morning had a backpack with bush-cheney stickers all over it. she's in 1st grade. indeed.

eric said...

Crush'em any way you can and the younger, the better. nice work, may may. h, you need to do better. we're talking the future of the country here, indeed!

mendacious said...

no more crushing of spirits sensai. you must lead as the river carves its path.

sallylynn said...

i'm so happy that jack appeared in your lecture. it's another way of taking over the world, sans tanks.

by the way, i can't remember my password. i totally give up.