{"id":590,"date":"2004-05-19T18:57:21","date_gmt":"2004-05-19T22:57:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/2004\/05\/19\/time-out\/"},"modified":"2007-02-15T18:44:55","modified_gmt":"2007-02-15T22:44:55","slug":"time-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/2004\/05\/19\/time-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Time out"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a> Excellent Enabler<\/p>\n

In reference to a man we all know, he said,
\n“Marriage has been good for him.”<\/p>\n

Advanced in age, the man now boasts a wife-mother-lover
\nWashing his delusions
\nWith her deft fingers.<\/p>\n

Rose-tinted, perfect for the time of day, she will absorb
\nAnd alter for him the impediments of reality,
\nLet the past fit into his vision’s tunnel.
\nDoes he see her?<\/p>\n

An unlikely survivor, continuing unscathed, protected by the rosy hand,
\nAs willingly she receives the wounds, a pincushion
\nTo his repetitive ministrations.<\/p>\n

Lies there, thinks what’s needed, while he’s her visible disaster.
\nMarriage has been good for him.<\/p>\n

Everything’s<\/strong> been bugging me lately — I don’t want to hear the news, I want to shoot talking heads with more than pop guns. Oddly enough, a poem of sorts sprang up from all that frustration, triggered by a phone conversation I had the other night. I used to do this a lot — not the character assassination inherent in this particular piece, but rather letting a poem (or something that’s dressed up as one) spill out. Maybe I’m inspired by the trend in Maria<\/a>‘s and Elaine<\/a>‘s blogs, maybe it’s just the thing to do right now. This alleged poem lets me say something compressed and real, part of my real world, something I understand. This in turn may or may not be something that has meaning beyond my world, although I would hope it does resonate in some way even with readers who have no idea who or what triggered my scribble. I don’t want to try to say something that’s an explication and somehow valid in some larger argument. I just want to say something that I recognised as true, all of a sudden, about someone, and that struck me as having applicability in other situations. In that sense, the off-hand remark my telephone caller made, “Marriage has been good for him,” opened into a bigger world that I liked better<\/em> than all the stuff that was pulling at my attention otherwise. It seemed more real, which seems a weird thing to say about something so inconsequential.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Excellent Enabler In reference to a man we all know, he said, “Marriage has been good for him.” Advanced in age, the man now boasts a wife-mother-lover Washing his delusions With her deft fingers. Rose-tinted, perfect for the time of day, she will absorb And alter for him the impediments of reality, Let the past […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[600],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-yulelogstories"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}