Argument

NaPoWriMo 2023 (Day 11)

Today, I was to write a poem that takes as its starting point something overheard that made me laugh, or something someone told me once that struck me as funny. So, one day…

Testimonial Tiptoeing

While walking to Bible Study one sunny Sunday
I thought I heard her say to me, “Sit on your hands
and keep your mouth shut.”
She may have said, “Please.”
I may have laughed,
as they say, out loud.

I don’t recall.
I hadn’t planned for this behavior,
nor had others. I was well-known
for my robust questions effectuating discourse.
But I agreed to remain calm and quiet.

Perhaps a little too proud of my oracular
transformation of boring topics into
heated disputes among those who cared
(maybe a little too much) about all things biblical.

I did my best. I really tried to make her proud.
With both hands literally under my arse,
and my lips drawn to a thin white line,
I was being holy as hell and doing fine,
until the lovely lady facilitating the study asked,

“Bill, why have you been so quiet?
Why have you not blessed us
with your usual wit and wisdom?”
And why is your face so red?

I don’t remember much after that.
The priest said it was demonic.
A friend said smoke bellowed
from my ears. I swear I heard a nun pray,
more impassioned than logical,
“May the saints preserve us from
this cantankerous old toad.”

Look both ways when contemplating all things divine.
Mind the gaps but give respect to get respect.
Sometimes a story is just a story and a joke is just a joke.

 

Click on the NaPo 2023 button to see the challenge and to read more poems (not all are on prompt).

NaPoWriMo: 30 poems in 30 days (day 22)

Day 22 prompt: write a poem inspired by an idiomatic phrase from a different language or culture.

How about both? I selected avoir l’esprit d’escalier (or avoir l’esprit de l’escalier), a French phrase that means to have the wit of the staircase. In English, we say escalator wit or afterwit. It refers to not making a repartee or a quick, witty reply, or clever comeback. The French admire and train for avoir de la répartie (the witty comeback) as part of their national sport: arguing and debating (so said dame de l’enseignement du français, Camille Chevalier-Karfis).

This idiom refers to thinking of your comeback after leaving and reaching the bottom of the stairs. The philosopher Diderot wrote about it around 1775, so it’s not a new thing.

Credit: Jim introduced me to this phrase a several months ago. Thanks hombre.

Right Back

I enjoy arguing. I even took argumentation
in college and I still twiddle with logic. But, I no
longer can find that safe place or person to engage
in a bit of désaccord amical. Is it me?

Am I sensitive to condescension or the ad hominem
manner I dismissed in my youth? Have I lost my edge?
Do I fear my own cuts to the core? I wish no harm.
In the past, I assumed my words were salt seasoned.

Am I more concerned with keeping the peace and less
with truth or finding fact? Can I call it at all, much less
like it is? Can we drink and swear, and point or turn
the voices up, yet go home friends who share more?

Is it my own l’esprit de l’escalier which forces me toward
and another thing … an hour later? Do you mean more to me
now than back then? Am I protecting you from me, me from you,
or is it some witness to the kerfuffle of wisdom and wit?

Or perhaps my heart and soul, my being me has fallen
into an age of mellow. Maybe I am diluted by political
and religious sensitivity, and by correctness of a culture
that wraps truth in euphemisms. Me? No way, José.

Look both ways in the world for cultural differences and similarities.
Mind the gaps, but know we are all connected.