Elliot Street, Brattleboro, Feb 22, 2015
I just watched you get arrested.
The waitress noticed it first.
Oh, wow, she said, someone is getting arrested
And I saw two policemen talking to you while
one of them pointed something in your face.
The fact is, I had just walked past you,
and had been afraid,
(because you looked a little out of your mind, to me,
or maybe just permanently off)
that you were going to ask me for a dollar
before I could slip into the brew pub.
Now, I am using your story
to create a poem, or a newsstory, or
something else, and I am not sure that is fair.
I am trying to do it honestly.
I have to write and turn in three chapters by next Thursday,
and I am writing about you instead.
I passed by you, cringing over my fear that you were going
to ask me for a dollar, and you yelled out
“Hey, Myrtle” and Myrtle,
wearing clothes as roughened as yours
came across the street.
I found myself wondering what things
you two took for normal
that I would consider deeply disturbing
until I got used to it and
then I relaxed and entered the brew pub,
and got my table,
got my coffee, and got ready to write
when the waitress blurted out
the news of your predicament.
The police officer had this thing that looked like
a white plastic gun, and I was afraid you were about to get
tazed,
in the face and looked like you were snarling,
as you talked, your head tilted to the side
like a teenage bull, and then you opened your mouth
and the police officer put what must have been
a breathalyzer in your mouth and he appeared to pull the
trigger.
And then you went back to talking,
and looking very, very, angry.
To me, you looked entirely like a belligerent
middle school student, your body contorting and shrinking
and twisting some as you talked, not gonna backing down,
but it was causing you some effort, apparently.
And then, the officer put the white plastic back in your
mouth.
He took it out, looked at it,
And then you put your hands behind your back,
and after some wiggling, you were handcuffed, and then
you fell.
You fell forward and out of view, beneath the plane
where the frosted glass of the restaurant made you
invisible.
And next you were up,
and your face looked rumpled
as though you had hit the street with your face.
The police looked calm,
and stressed out at the same time, and maybe a little sad.
I was glad I did not have their job,
removing drunk people
from the street.
And I worried for you, and the hours
you have ahead of you,
and the years that you
may have had behind you,
and the years that may be winding from now
until your end.
This is my version of prayer.
I dreamed last night that particles of toxic smoke
swirled up
like a murmuration of starlings
each bit of pointed sooty poison moving independently
and yet in concert with every other,
forming a malevolent cloud of invincible
contaminated, and contaminating menace.
I awoke.
I asked my wife
to hold me.
And she did.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-25104625
Thank you,
Thank you. Such a very Brattleboro moment.
Partial view and personal reaction
It probably goes without saying, but, my impressions of the event are just that.
From where I was sitting, the police did not appear angry, or aggressive. That of course is a lot easier for me to say since I wasn’t the one being arrested, but they appeared calm, and to this observer, professional.
Perfect
Although I am a word person, poetry generally escapes my notice. But this was perfect in every way. The ending means so much more than it says.
The Name and Nature of Poetry
It was handy that I had that nightmare the night before, as it was waiting to go somewhere useful. I have my own understandings of why it felt like it belonged at the end of that particular poem. I am glad to hear it worked for someone else. Thanks for taking the time to let me know. You throw things out into the ether and don’t know where they land, or even if they land at all.
Its been awhile since I read it, but A. E. Housman wrote this essay called the Name and Nature of Poetry, and I believe that this is what he says is one of the things that makes poetry at times more potent at times than prose.
This is such a terrible paraphrase, that is doesn’t even warrant the word, but he said something like, “No great poetry is ever fully understood, but great poetry can create more understanding than an equal amount of prose.”
He also wrote a lot of great and terrible poetry, in my humble opinion. At least he had his own favorite spoofers of his poetry.
If one knows even a little about the border wars between England and Wales, and the geography of the land, his poem called The Welsh Marches can be a moving experience. Or at least, it still gets me. But that poem Easter 1916, by Yeats about the Easter uprising in Ireland is maybe more on the mark. “What a terrible beauty is born.” I still get crushed by that one.