NaPoWriMo: Day Two

I wrote the The Set-Up as rebuttal to the myth of the "Super-Crip" the idea that people with disabilities are brave, inspirational, child-like figures who are ultimately super human and therefore not human. I've been feeling really personally fucking offended (TM) by this stereotype lately but The Set Up isn't so much angry as it as sad. Well, it tries to be angry. You'll see. It is very frank.

The Set-Up

So, tonight I'm having all these

stupid thoughts of how much I want an attic apartment
with birch butcher block counters
and maple cabinets painted white
a deep little sink with a black
backsplash

and two long white shelves with everything (everything!) I need

and a double bed
and a reading corner
and reclaimed wood floors
and a vegetarian diet
maybe a little fish

if I lived humbly like this
and taught children honestly

might I be forgiven enough to walk again?

Because I didn't want much then,
and I want even less now

and I will get down on my
knees believe you me

if it means I don't have to use a wheelchair before I've fallen in love.

you know, spare me from being the set-up to the joke...

so a black, bisexual, liberal, vegetarian, hipster, Christian woman
in a wheelchair
walks into a bar,

says she'll have a Shirley Temple because alcohol doesn't agree with her medication.

I can see the reality before it actually happens, the way I used to be able to see
myself getting a job as I went in for the interview. I know why it's offensive to say

wheelchair0bound. I know what you shouldn't say, what you shouldn't do. I give 15% of my disability check to Haiti, to aids-orphaned children in South Africa, to hungry children here in America.

But all I want is a 40,000 a year job, a one bedroom in Oak Park and to bang that professor I never got a chance to in grad school.

NaPoWriMo: Day One

For the first year ever, I'd decided to take part in NaPoWriMo which is briefly, the poet's NaNoWriMo. Instead of trying to write a novel in a month, one writes a poem a day.

As such the poems will be rough around the edges. They are not my best work, though they do typify my tone and style. One of my favorite poets is Kenji Miyazawa, a Japanese poet who live in the early part of last century in a part of Japan called Iwate, which was heavily damaged in the recent earthquake and tsunami.

I was thinking a lot about Kenji and how saddened he would be to see the people of his beloved Iwate suffering so. He was the oldest son of a moneylender during a time of famine and made his living as a teacher and geologist. Despite having plenty of money, his heart ached to see his students suffer; he couldn't bring himself to enjoy the trappings of his lifestyle. He chose to live simply.

Toshiko was his younger sister. She too wanted to be a teacher, but contracted tuberculosis. Her mother and brother nursed her dutifully but she sickened and died. Her death affected Kenji deeply. He mourned her openly at a time when women were valued less than men. She surfaced many times in his poems.

Before the days ends
you will be far away, my sister.
Outside, there's sleet and it's bright.
(Bring me some snow, Kenji)
From clouds the color of bismuth,
the sleet comes down....

Kenji endured a lot of personal tragedy in his brief life: the perennial misunderstanding of his father, the deaths of his sister and his wife, the distrust of the farmers who were the parents of his students. The latter would take a little more time to explain than I want to spare.

Mostly, this is a lot of talk for not that good of a poem.

The Gold at Sunset

Kenji, why don't you eat some food

God will never forgive you

and you will never see Toshiko in any heaven, Kenji
if you don't take my hand right now

let's go moon-seeing
let's go flower-watching

Kenji, don't you miss the croaking of the summer frogs
and the bridge of the milky way?

Kenji, come out into the gold at sunset
and whisper it into the sky
many, many times.

Suffering's lesson is this.