Posted
by Josh Robbins
March 3, 2007 at 9:45 p.m.
Poetry and profanity....
This week I received and e-mail from an old friend who recounted a recent memory. As she remembered it, we were walking around the university area of Seattle and it was one of those clear days when the sunlight strikes the trees just right and catches the chrome on a parked car and something inside you vibrates. It was one of those rare afternoons when the air is still enough to hear both the whisk of the broom on the sidewalk and the tune hummed by the man sweeping, and for just a moment you feel good to be human, so good in fact that you shout things like, as I'd shouted at her, "I want to fuck the world and everything in it!"I don't think I'm off base here, but most people have felt that spontaneous overflow of emotion at some point, right? Or, is it time for me to get checked back in?Perhaps no lines of poetry can better describe that feeling than the closing stanza of "Counsels" by the Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz who writes, "There is so much death, and that is why affection / for pigtails, bright-colored skirts in the wind, / for paper boats no more durable than we are...." Milosz writes with a unique tenderness and his poems always insist that we recognize and celebrate humanity, however fragile it is, a thing "no more durable" than paper.Since reading my friend's e-mail, I've also been thinking about that word: "fuck."Raise your hand if it's your favorite word.Okay, I can see it is the majority of you reading this who have your hands up and I'm certain we could go on and on about "fuck" and its uses and utilities, about our much loved pastimes, good jokes, and our favorite examples from "Big Lebowski," etc. But, for now at least, we can save that for the comments.One of my favorite poems, though, about the word and the word's potential to signify and mean is by Steve Scafidi.Ode to the Middle FingerBlunt eloquent digit- it points to the sky where Johnny Cash is reunited with his bride and his brother Jack who died in the teeth of a mill saw ripping boards a long time ago and the circle is at last unbroken for Johnny Cash who gave the finger to the warden famously once at Folsom Prison singing to the citizens there in 1968 and so I also thank god for all the rich blessings of the middle finger which the middle finger bestows somehow on the giver and even the redwood, the mighty redwood tree takes the shape of it. Even the dandelion. And Johnny Cash is dead and gone today and the bird he raised remains a common thing I thank god for giving me everyday to raise here with fury and love, Oh lord let this be my prayer.The word (and the gesture) imply a freedom like no other because the word itself is human like no other. So human in fact that even the gesture associated with it is almost like an incantation of being. It's a word of consecration. It's a prayer.Another of my favorite poems by Czeslaw Milosz is "Ars Poetica?" because of the wisdom of these two simple lines, "In the very essence of poetry there is something indecent: / a thing is brought forth which we didn't know we had in us."Really there is only one word that always expresses what you didn't know you had in you. There is only one word that means what you always need it to mean.And that, my friends, is a blessing.Now...go fuck yourselves.![][1]+++Acknowledgments:"Counsels" and "Ars Poetica?" from The Collected Poems by Czeslaw Milosz © Copyright 1988 by Czeslaw Miosz Royalties, Inc."Ode to the Middle Finger" from For Love of Common Words by Steve Scafidi © Copyright 2006 by Steve Scafidi. [1]: http://img394.imageshack.us/img394/2917/johnnycashfinger7va.jpg
Comments
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godjilla (Jill Ensley) says…
Welllll, this should get some fucking comments.
No one can give the finger like that man there. Any other attempts pale in comparison.
And it's true, no other "bad word" truly expresses humanity in its most base, most sublime, messed up, low and awe-inspiring states.
gutternoise (Josh Robbins) says…
Woo-hoo, a fucking comment.
beatle919 (Marcy McGuffie) says…
I totally raised my hand in the air and luckily no coworkers noticed.
Thanks for the fucking good laugh!
thetomdotdot (anonymous) says…
Wow. A whole blog celebrating the word and gesture I spend 90% of my time trying not to say and flip.
There once was a girl from Nantucket
whose husband ran off with her bucket
for lack of a turd
she flipped him a bird
he was too happy with bucket to duck it
thetomdotdot (anonymous) says…
So into the outhouse he snuck it
why not sit on the bucket and pluck it
his vision was blurred
and damage incurred
when beak saw the eyeball and stuck it
thetomdotdot (anonymous) says…
with bandages had for a ducat
he crawled home to his bride with their bucket
his sorrowing word -
her anger abjured
until he suggested she suck it
Carmenilla (anonymous) says…
There is a fairly decent documentary out called "F**K". It gives some historical information and dispels the idea that fuck stands for "fornication under consent of king". Overall its a funny and informative little movie. I especially liked the focus on fuck's censorship over the years. Good fucking stuff.
godjilla (Jill Ensley) says…
I was always intrigued by this book, but haven't had time to read it...
http://www.amazon.com/F-word-Jesse-Sh...
beatle919 (Marcy McGuffie) says…
Carmenilla - I do the Blockbuster, mail renting thing (like Netflix). I just put that documentary on my list last week. Sounds like a kick...glad you mentioned it. Can't wait to see it!
gutternoise (Josh Robbins) says…
Thanks to ya'll for the comments.
T'dot: What can I say sir? Pretty spot on there, but don't you think that when the gun is introduced, you've gotta pull the trigger?
Jilla: You (or anyone) read The Fuck-up? I don't really know much about it, but that it's in the fiction section. Came to mind. It's mostly the cool kids who come in looking for it, so I'm sure we wouldn't all qualify anyway. But thanks for the recommendation; I'll look into it.
Question: anyone know good books on suburban/x-urb theory?
Beatle919: Usually you can read my stuff outloud at work. Sorry not this time, but glad to know it was good for a laugh. What'd you think of the poem?
Carmenilla: Thank you as well for the media recommendation. I have a funny/clever/insightful webvideo on the etymology of the word and I'll post it in the comments when I can find it. It's temorarily lost.
thetomdotdot (anonymous) says…
The moral is there if you tookit
Yeah fingers, yeah triggers, but lookit
For lack rhyming word
here's Irish absurd
fookit, fookit, fookit, fook fookit
gutternoise (Josh Robbins) says…
thedot: Brilliant....