Friends and Followers, TWO Poems For Today, Friday, March 14, 2014, both revisions of poems put on the timeline yesterday, beginning with FROM OUTSIDE YOUR WINDOW, PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW MY SON HAS ENDURED SO MUCH PAIN AND SUFFERING and followed by SHAKESPEARE AT WORK IN 1599, IN LONDON, ME HERE, IN RALEIGH, AND KAREN CUCCIO DAVIS THERE, IN NEW PORT RICHEY, FLORIDA. Hope you are enjoying reading the poems, as it is a lot of hard work to post them daily, but well worth the effort. Best wishes, Dennis. FROM OUTSIDE YOUR WINDOW, PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW MY SON HAS ENDURED SO MUCH PAIN AND SUFFERING Begun Thursday morning, January 23, 2014, shortly after midnight; revised Wednesday morning, February 18, 2014 and early Friday morning March 14, 2014 “That scrawny cry—/it was/part of the colossal sun” --Wallace Stevens, “Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself” From outside your window, please explain to me how my son has endured so much pain and suffering, and managed to survive? I can’t explain it. He is a hero, as is my wife, in my eyes. No one in my family asks— can you believe this, you who don’t know, who do not know us. Is this how a family of brother and sisters acts? If you yourselves have not been subject to this same level of violence and terror, if these same or similar traumatic events have not happened to you, or to a loved one, you will not be able to feel what I feel and how I feel it, will feel though you may be able to conceptualize, hear my scrawny cry for help from outside, from outside your window even if you have not been here where I stand. I feel relieved my son sleeps well in his bed tonight—that he is not distressed by pernicious pharmaceuticals of a medical system out of control, whose chief goal is making money no matter the human cost. I have been overwhelmed by guilt and grief in dealing with his suffering. Meanwhile, my brothers and sisters go on pretending that nothing is wrong, that everything is alright, all is well, nothing in need of correction, adjustment—their attitudes included. Almost everyone needs an attitude adjustment once, twice in this life, and this scrawny bird will continues to sing his part, cry out outside their windows, sing a new knowledge of reality they do not like, not ideas about the thing, but the thing itself—my son a vital human being. SHAKESPEARE AT WORK IN 1599, IN LONDON, ME HERE, IN RALEIGH, AND KAREN CUCCIO DAVIS THERE, IN NEW PORT RICHEY, FLORIDA Begun Tuesday morning, March 11, 2014 at 8:32 a.m.; revised early Friday morning, March 14, 2014 at 12:34 a.m. “The Shakespeare who emerges in these pages is less a Shakespeare in Love than a Shakespeare at Work . . . He had precious few hours late at night and early in the morning free to read and write—often by flickering candlelight and fighting fatigue. If Shakespeare was in love in 1599, it was with words.” --James Shapiro, A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare 1599 “One more thing . . . Several years ago, when I was emailing my friend Karen (Cuccio) Davis of New Port Richey, FL, an English professor and former colleague at Pasco-Hernando Community College, a worker from Progress Energy came behind our home and tried to turn off the power when I was emailing her about possible police involvement in various disappearances, including that of Centre Co. PA District Atorney Ray F. Gricar, Centre County home county of Penn State University and then president Graham Spanier who has now been indicted for covering up the pedophile scandal there involving former assistant Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky. I am sure you know the Penn State story well, being the football fan that you are—University of Texas, Longhorns #1 and all of that.” --email of Thursday, February 13, 2014 22:51:34-0500 to Dr. Phillip Sipiora, Department of English, The University of South Florida, Tampa There are reasons for this welter of poems, but to write is to write, for that reason, for that satisfaction alone, though most recently writing them has also become a matter of survival, my and my family’s, as I have told Liz and George Milne, and John Owens before them just these past several days: “And as to my poetry, I have very compelling reasons as to why I am making it upfront and intimate right now . . .very compelling reasons because it [writing poems] can, ironically, help keep me alive and well . . . “ as it did for Shakespeare, but under totally different circumstances. Here are mine, most specifically: I emailed Karen Cuccio Davis of New Port Richey, Florida to inform her of “possible police involvement in various disappearances, including that of Centre Co. PA District At[t]orney Ray F. Gricar, Centre County home county of Penn State University and then president Graham Spanier who has now been indicted for covering up the pedophile scandal there involving former assistant Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky.” At that point “a worker from Progress Energy came behind our home and tried to turn off the power”, but my son Shawn Michael Ryan caught him in the act, told me and I prevented it, only to have the Raleigh PD on my doorstep the follow day, and many times thereafter deliberately traumatizing Shawn in the process, Shawn who already suffers from PTSD at the hands of many police officers, including Cary’s Charles Dorman, B.J. Beaman and Irvin Leggett, and Raleigh’s H. Slade, amongst others, including members of the Durham PD. Here, then, is survival. Here, then, is the poem. And here then is the poet at work— Shakespeare toiling to complete Henry V—and in like manner, me, forever rallying the recalcitrant internal troops—rallying the will and the resolution—against all odds. END OF POEMS
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 06:02:09 +0000
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