[lit-ideas] Bad Poetry Competition 2011
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2011 21:17:14 -0700
I remember enjoying the movie "Swimming to Cambodia." Spalding Gray was a
funny man. I particularly liked the idea that any vacation should have a
"perfect moment," which I understood to mean a moment of peace and contentment.
Certainly that's what I'd been searching for in vacations at the time. For me
life was about concentration and commitment and hard work, getting on with
getting on. Also, of course, enthusiasm, love and lust. And all things
youthful. On vacation what I really wanted was a moment of quiet beside the
ocean when I could feel my feet connected to the rocks and enjoy the light
caress of trade winds and then look up at the stars and feel really quite tiny.
With a little booze to do for me what humans do with biscuits to dogs, I was
in heaven. Then, of course, Spalding committed suicide. Jumped off a Staten
Island ferry, it's believed. But I persisted, recycling memories of perfect
moments whenever I needed to shut my brain down of an evening. "Stop bothering
me, you worries you," I'd say, "think of a perfect moment." That was how to
cause the buggers to go away, the worries, ignorant puppies. Recently,
however, we returned to one of the scenes of such a moment, Poipu Beach. This
is a very fine place, a wonderful place to be really. But it is no longer the
way it was. That was that. And so now when I lie awake, I focus on good tennis
points and poor old Spaulding Gray not swimming to New Jersey.
when under a grey sky i gaze upward
i can't make out where a golf ball is
or find
rain
i
keep my head down
my eyes out
my trap shut
a long time ago in primary school we were told what the lowest form of wit was
who climbed high
when where and how
why was
most often
because
boys picked their noses
then tapped them
to show they were in on
it
others stashed plastic macs in leather satchels
against rainy days
we strove for gold stars and jesus
held ourselves together
thought of others
waggled our bats
i missed the lesson on sticky wickets
my shoes were shined with cloth and brush
under matron and lulu's eye we swam
always in the buff
like the near-invisibility of rain and white balls in grey skies
my memories mean very little
nature piddles on minions and middle management equally
we come into the world unfleeced
hail melts
you appraise your lies
i mine
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
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