On Lennon's Lucrative Hair

  Heritage Auctions image

How they won the war on the peaceniks, they

got the cynical idealist to play Pvt Gripweed,

cut his hair for this new film role, fit him

up with trendy, round glasses, and
parodied the anti-war parodies. 
     Should I laugh or beat my breast,
     because what's funny about war,
     or anti-war? 

14 years on, the bespecticaled muskateer dies
and the world mourns.

In 36 more, a clever keeper sells
that (now 50-year-old) lock of hair,

for 35,000 smackeroos, smiling
all the way to the bank. 
      (As we get old, do we cash in?)

Look, how we win today's war(s) is, we 

*  $ell Peace, one arm$-deal at a time, we

*  $ell "silly", to distract.
*  For the war on cancer we ask folks to 
        volunteer their hair

        to wigless fighters
*  For the war on poverty, we 
        ask the nation to don Austerity

        via needed cuts and trims.
*  For the Woe-Be-Me's, we 
        encourage the use of rosy glasses,

        to envision future bizness bloomings.  

Do we need new idols now to sing us Peace and Oneness

'mid war, and rumors of?

No, we need:

*  more "forward" thinkers,
        to example us to profit
*  more paid preacher$ 
        to promote pro$perity
        to the Never-Will-Haves
*  more devoted dividers 
        to direct the Disassemblings,
        one hate screed at a time.

See, Oneness is unthinkable (given our differences).

Let's 

*  plan more detention center$,

*  erect higher wall$, 
*  build better fence$,

*  con$truct more temporary Permanent camp$

        for the perpetual (now global) 
        dePossessionings.

Meanwhile, back at the Auction House  . . . 

Imagine! - a dead Beatle's hair attains a second life,
this icon of an icon, still retaining his DNA. 
Lennon LIVES!!! 

There IS no We anymore -  just the remembered things:
those words, those times;  bad luck, good "deals"; 
lyrics from our worshipped departeds, re-sung on the
way to the unemployment office, while pondering the
endless march of the war on all;  and on:      

what disappears,
  what lives on;   
    what never change$;
      what we keep,

        what we buy into,
          what we $ell,
           what we can't, and
            what we just
              reframe.

~~  Words that arose and tumbled out after reflecting on an article about the recent sale at an auction house, of a lock of John Lennon's hair for $35,000; about arms dealing (who buys what from whom and for what purpose). the ongoing migrant situation, and political doublespeak.

Behind the Curtain

Costumes, as symbols.
Ritual, to remind.
Membership, to perpetuate.
These things, you still find.
      Everywhere.

Meaning doth lie
in the meaning attached;
accepted as "givens"
even if you're detached.
     So it seems.

Enactment a must.
It reinforces belief.
A setting we trust
to bring sought-for relief
     from life's Void,

from all that's unknown
yet we think might be true.
Life without symbol
or myth, just won't do.
     It can't BE.

Image as mirror,
as message . . .  as glue.
The face that you wear -
Is it really you?
     (that one that you share).

I once met a man
quite famous, in fact;
was shown to his study,
to be taken aback
     at his face everywhere

in dozens of photos
displayed on the wall
of himself with famed others.
"Visitors, bow down in awe!"
     was the message it told.

But why shouldn't one show
to the world one's Self,
in a suit or a robe
or dressed like an elf
     or as Everyman?

We're actors here, all
playing our role
on or offstage
cautious or droll.
     We write the script.

Like that self-absorbed man
let us into his room
"Look at me, look at me,"
his hims said in tune,
     and it's true -

talent he had;
influence, in flux,
(I shudder to think
exactly how much
     it rampages on.)

 A legacy left,
 he's so happy, I'm sure
at the zillions of places
it stuck and much more 
     like stealth glaze.

Costumes, as symbols
Ritual, to remind
Membership, to perpetuate
These things, you still find
     Everywhere.

We're actors here, all
just playing our role
on or offstage
cautious or droll.
     That is the plan.

Now they write the script,
assign the roles,
provide the stage,
supply the trolls.
     We all know the drill.

Clap, clap, everyone.
Did you enjoy the show?

Wait.  You didn't realize it was a show?
.
________________________________


*A rhymey, blurt-poemy addendum, of sorts, to yesterday's hastily painted wake-up cards, neither of which adequately expresses the insight that resulted from this morning's sudden collision of a past memory with a sense about a not-so-current but continuing series of events.

Being Where You Are

 

awynart

A man passed by on his bicycle in the wee hours of the morning,
gloveless – and I know the bite of winter’s sting - so wondered
how long it would take him to get to where he’s going.

Maybe, while he peddles, he imagines himself elsewhere,
on a desert island perhaps, warmed by the sun, listening to the waves.
How hard it is, with time, to continue to “Be-where-you-are”
if your ability to Be
depends on where you are.

Thoughts arriving after reading this  poem I saw back in November:

If only
I could learn

to be
where I am

and not
where I want

to be.

   ~ ~ Tom Montag

Of course it all depends on what one means by "be".  And maybe, sometimes, the being Here or the being There turns out  the same, that 'everywhere you go, there you are' -  or are still not.  Come winter--in this neck of the woods, at least--a lot of folks just want to be in Florida.  These migrateurs en bon francais, or "snowbirds", as they're called, flock there by the thousands (between January and April, 700,000 Quebeckers head to the US to escape the snow.)

Once, while walking a neighbor's dog on a frigid January morning, my fingers and toes went numb and I began stomping my boots and punching my hands together, frantically  trying to get the circulation back. I was expending a lot of energy just reacting.  The phrase "Be the cold" arrived in my head and I suddenly stopped and calmed down.  I would get home soon enough, but for a brief moment I let go, as it were, and became the snow.  And everything changed.  Hard to explain, and I realize this sounds corny (becoming snow),  but the numbness suddenly seemed less painful, the fear of frostbite less pervasive; my focus swept from the panicky stomping to ... the snow-covered landscape, the bright blue sky, the crazy little dog now chasing a black squirrel. And I walked, not ran, on back home.  And the winters got easier.  Maybe it's all in how you see a thing.

The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less sure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to comprehend.

~ ~ Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception

  

I believe I am in Hell, therefore I am.  ~ ~ Arthur Rimbaud 

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.  ~  ~ Oscar Wilde

 You can observe a lot just by watching.  ~ ~ Yogi Berra

I kinda got sidetracked here with the quotables..  My favorite Yogi Berra quote is:

If you come to a fork in the road, take it.

It calls to mind another oft-heard saying, "When in doubt, continue driving" (rather than just randomly turning left or right  not knowing if, but hoping, you'll somehow get unlost) . Imagine yourself coming to a fork in the road ... and continuing just driving forward.  No one would, of course.  But not knowing if you should do this or that is a kind of fork in the road, and if you just keep going (Yogi's "taking the fork"), you're opting to not stay stuck.  You keep moving, but perhaps differently, more conscious of  when not to panic, when to stay the course, when to let go, when to get on with be-ing.  (Or something like that.). 

Thoughts on a  cold gray cloudy day, waving bye to some snowbirds.