Poetry on the Radio

I was driving north to British Columbia with both my mountain and road bike on the roof for a week of tuning out.

I DON’T HAVE TO BE ME (‘TIL MONDAY)
 
I got me a brand new car waiting in the driveway.
Shinin' like a bright new star;
I been wishin' on it everyday.
To take me away from here.
So I called in to where I work; told a little white lie.
No my back don't really hurt, but that's my alibi,
My temporary ticket to anywhere but there.
Call it an early weekend; call it goin' off the deep end;
Call it what you want, I made up my mind:

I don't have to be me 'til Monday.
Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
I ain't gonna face reality.
Three days without punching a time clock;
Three nights of goin' non-stop;
No work and all play.
I don't have to be me 'til Monday.
Yeah.

I can do what I wanna do, be who I wanna be.
I got no one to answer to, soon as I turn the key.
A cash machine, gasoline and we're outta here.
Call it an early weekend; call it goin' off the deep end;
Baby, you and me, we can leave it all behind.

I don't have to be me 'til Monday.
Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
I ain't gonna face reality.
Three days without punching a time clock;
Three nights of goin' non-stop;
No work and all play.
I don't have to be me 'til Monday.

*by Steve Azar from the album, Waitin' On Joe


ON THE WAY TO WORK
 
Life is a bitch. And then you die.
--a bumper sticker

I hated bumper stickers, hated
the notion of wanting to be known
by one glib or earnest thing.
but this time I sped up to see
a woman in her forties, cigarette,
no way to tell how serious
she was, to what degree she felt
the joke, or what she wanted from us
who’d see it, philosophers all.
If I’d had my own public answer—
“New Hope For The Dead,”
the only sticker I almost stuck—
I would have driven in front of her
and slowed down. How could we not
have become friends
or the kind of enemies
who must talk into the night,
just one mistake away from love?
I rode parallel to her,
glancing over, as one does
on an airplane at someone’s book.
Short, straight hair. No make-up.
A face that had been a few places
and only come back from some.
At the stop light I smiled
at her, then made my turn
toward the half-life of work
past the placebo shops
and the beautiful park, white
like a smokescreen with snow.
She didn’t follow, not in this
bitch of a life.
And I had so much to tell her
before we die
about what I’d done all these years
in between, under and around
truths like hers. Who knows
where we would have stopped.

*by Stephen Dunn from the book, Between Angels

One of the above is a poem by a fine American writer, the other a popular country western song now in rotation on stations around the country--both western and otherwise. I'm not trying to discount either one by saying that just about anybody can probably tell which is which. I liked both of these works when I first encountered them. They both had something to say and both didn’t have any trouble saying it to me. Country music is pretty far from poetry, and poetry doesn’t come around often to the world we generally think of when we think of country music, but they don’t seem so different after reading these two pieces.

Life is a bitch but sometimes you skip a day of work and drive far from home or see a stranger you wouldn’t mind talking to if your parallel universes ever could intersect if only for a minute, or a drink. The possibilities are limitless—at least in our imaginations. What else matters? These are the things we are compelled to write about, those of us who are compelled to write (and that seems to be just about all of us these days).

I can’t say I’m a big fan of modern country music but I tune in once and a while. I listen because I am rewarded with a really great phrase now and again. I could repeat those two sentences and replace ‘country music’ with ‘poetry.’ I have to say that I am more comfortable with prose but I’m always willing to listen and learn.

Maybe it was the mood I was in when I came across that poem and heard that song but I was struck each time by the honesty of both works. Just like you can usually look someone straight in the eye and tell if they are telling the truth, honesty is fairly easy to spot in a song or a poem. It’s like you just want to say to the author, “Yeah, I know exactly what you mean, brother.”

I heard both of these works on the radio. Stephen Dunn’s wonderful poem was read by Garrison Keillor on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac and Steve Azar’s song I heard today when I got the radio fixed in my car and tuned to the country station. NPR and KAYO Country are close enough on the dial but probably worlds apart as far as demographics go. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t get outside of my target market ghetto as often as I should. As big as my world is, it seems pretty small at times. All it takes to get out of where you’re at is a cash machine and gasoline, or a spin on the radio dial, or a library card. I get out as often as I can, and I’m always glad when I do.