THE ZOO, ALWAYS THE STUPID ZOO

When I was little, I thought going to the zoo was great.  I was too small to comprehend what penning animals in cages or even "compassionately" reconstructing their habitats within walls was doing to them.  How could I have known?  I was just a kid.  Kids do no have the ability to see the consequences of "fun stuff" that may be hurting, in this case, the animals that deserve to roam, to hunt, to live wild and to be free.  Sure, back then, when I was too small and too myopic to understand, we all teared-up watching the movie, "Born Free", the story of Elsa, a lioness that eventually was granted freedom.  "Born free / free as the wind blows...." 

Then I grew up.  I saw zoos for what they are: cruel instruments in which animals are utilized for entertainment--and of course profit.  Sure, zoologists will claim they are conducting valuable research and helping endangered wildlife populations survive, but when orcas start dying at Seaworld, someone somewhere has to see the truth: Those beings are not designed for confinement.  They simply aren't.  Let the little kiddies cry and release the orcas into their world--as far away from ours as possible. 

I also hate being "pegged"; you know, penned in by some reductionist BS that "requires" I behave in certain ways, or dance the dance I may or may not want to dance.  What's up with that?  I was kidding this morning when I "castigated" the poetry e-zine for conducting another pretty lousy poem about "the cray cray" and the self-deluded, but I asked one serious question:  If human beings are actually processes, entities that move and forever change, what is the role of poetry in all this?  Does a poem suddenly mean the process, the river, needs to stop flowing immediately?  Or is poetry a moment's monument, a documentation of a state-of-mind left as an artifact for readers, listeners and the curious.  I choose the latter.  Poems are meant to explore a mental/emotional or even physical constellation that occurred or perhaps was imagined by the poet.  We dream.  Dreaming is not illegal.  Dreams have functions: Dreams tell us things we need to know about both ourselves and about our pressing situations in ways that, like poetry, speak in metaphor, and often, in dreams, metaphor is emotionally charged, ambiguous, numinous (one of my favorite words) and they are messages that go far deeper than Twitter or e-mail. 

I remember working as a legal assistant.  We conducted legal work for many companies and corporations, and one of our functions was to "solidify" a liquid situation, thus making it an object, a company, a merger, a deal.  This is fine in the theater of business, but like everything else in this corporatism that bleeds into polities and politics and even society and culture, all too many of us believe that "solidification" in relationships, in social networks, in important activities is what actually happens. 

That does not actually happen. 

I refuse to be "pegged" in such a way.  My life is a process.  And, like everyone, I make mistakes.  I transgress, I trespass, I make poor decisions.  Nobody's perfect: great 20th Century axiom.  We all do.  There is no avoiding this.  Sometimes, we have the very best intentions when we choose a certain path, and then the unknown, the future, reveals unintended consequences not even a seer or prophet could divine. 

Only sissies run from uncertainty.  Keats called this insanity "irritable grasping" in his famous "negative capability" letter in which he laid down the hard facts of the matter that human beings live in ambiguity, and that nothing is solid or defined.  It just isn't.  Nothing is "forever".  Our lives may last 70 + years, but that's all too short, really.  Why reduce anything to a dogmatism, an ideology, a belief system, some didactic pabulum that will not stand the test of time even when designed to last forever?

You're a bad person because we say you are a bad person? 

Says who? 

Think of beautiful women.  Right now, they're irresistible, but in a few years, they become crones, and while the vanity right now is enjoyable, and beauty-as-weapon is entertaining, it's not going to last forever.  I always feel sad when I see a once beautiful woman, a woman who has aged-out, crazy-sad and trying to reclaim her youth.  That must be especially difficult for women who have utilized their beauty as stock-in-trade for getting what they want when they want it.  Men also go through this: We are not forever strong.  We lose our strength.  But some men hang onto their youth as if, at 70, they are still Superman. 

Nothing is the only thing that lasts forever. 

I am not going to be pegged.  If I feel abandoned by someone, if what I have said or done is uncomfortable to someone, or causes someone a bit of fear, that's too bad.  Every word we speak or write is about the moment, spoken; the moment, written.  There is no, "You sang and now that's that."  That's a social contrivance, a little machine, no better than the plastic clock on the wall. 

I always liked the old song, "Don't Fence Me In".  Sadly, fencing people in is a cottage industry these days.  The wild animal that is a human being gets suffocated by that kind of zooing.  Humankind's biggest predicament is coming to terms with the animal we each are and the social and cultural and political demands we learn to live together without too much hassle or violence.  Wars begin when the animal can no longer take the zoo.  Look at all the great wars: They are signatory of huge changes is paradigm.  Now that humankind can destroy humankind, perhaps it's time to learn that, indeed, we are still going to be wild animals no matter what phantasms we place over ourselves, those grids, those ideologies, those cultural games or social dances. 

Why fit in if fitting in shuts you down? 

My mind turns to an evening almost 35 years ago.  Thirty five years ago, a big time literati and editor, Gordon Lish, astonished the world with his short stories and some of his literary education projects.  Lish was invited to Dallas to read at Southern Methodist University, and interested in seeing what he had to say I walked to SMU to attend the reading.  All the dimwits in suits and fancy dresses.  Lish was on stage in blue jeans.  He did entertain the audience, but I sincerely doubt many in the auditorium had the faintest of ideas what he was saying.  Then, someone invited me to the after party.  And I went. 

A garage apartment near campus.  Some students hosted Lish.  When I arrived, all the young students were, in the manner in which they thought proper, were all dressed to the nines.  I looked at those little fucks.  Sports coats, nice haircuts, so much affectation I felt like pulling out a can of Raid and just killing the insects on the spot.  It was ridiculous.  Students trying to say clever things to impress someone who would be here and gone. 

Why not be real? 

I looked at Lish.  He looked back, his expression of frustration palpable on his face.  So I stepped forward and grinning, upbraided him for not being "dressed properly". 

"Get me out of here.  I hate this shit." 

So we stepped out on the porch and smoked a joint.  That little act traveled like the wind throughout SMU: Gordon Hilgers broke the rules. 

I still laugh about the affected ones, all concerned about the freaking dance. 

Get real.