Most of us, at one time or another, have stopped to listen or watch street performers. Sometimes their acts seem a desperate search for money. But often, they display a significant amount of talent.

 

It is quite probable that some of the finest artists in the world have never reached a major stage. Becoming a famous singer or musician or dancer, is largely a matter of having your talent “recognized” by someone in a position to take it to a new level.

 

I have heard and seen street performers in places all over the world who have left me wondering why they aren’t part of something more…something bigger.

 

Perhaps, for some, it is a conscious choice. They don’t choose celebrity. For most, however, they are invisible because they live in a world that is a parallel universe to our own. We may briefly break free from our individual lives to stop and listen to a marvelous street performer. But the worth of the performance is usually judged by the stage, and an abandoned storefront, underground rail station or park bench, are not the surroundings that merit more than a few moments of our time.

 

As I watched one of these performances, it became apparent that this dancer did not need to be validated by surroundings. His message to me was, no matter what the stage, we always have the power to control our performance.

 

The Tap Dancer (In the Cat’s Eye, 2009) is about that street performance which I saw in New York many years ago. The talent displayed, the integrity of the performer, and the ability he had to, literally, stop traffic, remain with me to the present, and are a constant source of inspiration.

 

Glenn K. Currie

 

                                                     The Tap Dancer

 

Pounding the sidewalk, filled with fury,

Anxious to make the music hurry,

He moved his feet to impatient beats,

Translating languages of the streets.

 

His boom box propped against the wall,

Reverberated the rhythm’s call.

Rapping on windows, rattling locks,

Accomplice to the dancer’s knocks.

 

Then like magic, harmony flows,

Music and motion blend and grow.

A small crowd gathers in the square,

Watching the artist paint the air.

 

Performing for a jaded few,

On a stage of obstructed view.

A master dances, playing taps,

Talent sold, for coins in a cap.

 

After watching the Academy Awards Ceremony the other night, I was thinking about what a mixed blessing it must be to be a celebrity.

 

The adulation and fame do wonders for the ego and yet, once obtained, is often accompanied by the fear that it can slip away in an instant.

 

It is great to be recognized everywhere you go until it isn’t. Until you find you can’t go to the store or the movies or a restaurant without the hassle of looking the part and being graded on everything from your menu choice to your tip. And the slightest unpleasant encounter or conversation will be caught on camera by some of the most obnoxious people in the world.

 

Celebrity also means if you or your family screw up, even get a parking ticket, everyone in the world will know about it.

 

Even the events that are meant to be supreme ego gratifiers can be difficult. Think about the Oscars. Most of the nominated will be losers and all the participants will be graded on what they wear, who did their hair and who they are with. Cameras will zero in at the worst possible moments, and if you screw up the pronunciation of a name like John Travolta did, the embarrassment will richochet around the world several times.

 

The other tough thing about being a celebrity is that even after your time is past, it remains a part of you. It is like a ticking time bomb waiting for any misstep to light up the information highway with the news. You may not be of interest on a daily basis, but the public is always there to grade you when necessary.

 

As you age, you can be sure that your epitaph has already been written by hundreds of blogs and journals, and is ready to be published or updated based on what the day brings.

 

It is hard to age well as a celebrity. This is why many try to fade into anonymity in later years. For some, however, fame is too addictive and they try to cling to the spotlight even when the glare is too harsh. You only have to look at the embarrassing efforts of Kim Novak at this year’s Oscars to see what can happen. A once beautiful woman reduced herself to a train wreck through the misuse of plastic surgery. Her moment back on the stage was one of those events where it was painful to watch but too hard to look away.

 

All of this is preface to an encounter I had recently on a plane trip. I sat across the aisle from an individual who had once been a familiar face to almost everyone in America. He was now a confused old man, traveling alone and, seemingly, adrift in the world. He was a gentle soul whose celebrity did not allow him to be just another traveler, but instead emphasized the distance he had travelled in life.

 

I wrote the poem Landing (copyright 2014 Glenn K. Currie) about that encounter.

 

Landing

 

The old man’s coffee cup leaked unnoticed,

Wetting his pants as he waited to board.

Someone helped him tighten the lid,

But a trail of drops continued to mark his passage.

He had misplaced his ticket,

And sat in the wrong seat

Until a flight attendant checked the roster.

 

He wore dirty white boots that zipped in front,

And white latex gloves over swollen hands.

 As passengers passed through business class

They smiled and he smiled back,

Sometimes complimenting a sweater or hat.

The comments seemed more a habit;

An obligation rather than an observation.

 

In the three hour flight he neither read nor ate.

He got up once to abuse a bathroom

That did not accommodate his size or age.

Everyone on the plane knew who he was,

But his fame now seemed a burden.

Cell phones lit up in baggage claims,

Detailing an old man’s struggles to fly.

 

 

 Copyright 2014 Glenn K. Currie

Our lives are marked by births and marriages and funerals, and the people that move in and out of our conscious worlds. Most of these people intersect with us only in brief moments. We are participants in a larger universe where our perspectives are unique and share common ground with others only in accidental congruence.

The major events that define the lives of our friends almost always start and finish without us .We are  part of the crowd that makes life real for them, but then we spin off in different directions coming back together only as pieces in a play without a script.

Sometimes it is hard to tell what is real at these intersecting events. Have we been here before? Does everything seem familiar? Is this part of that dream that seemed so real a few years or weeks ago. 

Weddings are the strangest. We usually know just one of the two individuals. And the odds are that half will end in divorce. Yet the event is filled with the romantic optimism that represents the beginnings of new lives. And we drink and dance and hope that this will be a time when two people will find a partner to share their journey across this earth.

The Wedding (copyright Glenn K. Currie, 2014) is about one of those events.

 

The Wedding

                              

The line between here and there

Seems so thin.

I wonder sometimes if I cross

Back and forth,

And never know it.

People seem to disappear

For so many years

And then return,

Recounting their journey

In the time it takes

To wait in a drink line

At a wedding.

Perhaps I have slept

Through my hours on Earth

Only to wake to memories

Translucent as air.

Warm breaths that ride a breeze

Blowing through a bipolar world

Of  whispers and shouts.

Conversations

Of life and death,

Tossed off

Like so many gin and tonics.

 

I sit and watch

A young couple take vows

In a gathering

That will never be duplicated

Yet occurs all the time.

I wonder who I will see

When some of us meet again.

Or will my journey

Never again intersect

With those who move

From here to there.

copyright 2014 Glenn K. Currie

As I sit this 1st day of March, surrounded by two feet of snow, I try to gather strength and husband hopes from the knowledge that a rebirth of the land will soon take place.


Spring is the beginning of the cycle of life for our place on this earth. It is the season of wonder and the freshness of new discoveries.  And it is the proof of our resurrection from the seemingly endless gray of winter.


I wrote Spring (Riding in Boxcars, 2006) to try to capture the youthful exuberance that comes with this season. For adults especially, its arrival seems akin to that last day of school when we were ten. It gives us permission to turn our souls inside out and feel the joy of shedding our burdens and walking into a land of new beginnings.


The caption I wrote under the accompanying photograph in my book reads "We are young as long as we still savor the scents of lilacs and roses and fresh clover".


Stay young. Spring is coming.


Glenn K. Currie

Spring

 

Oh the joy!

A child,

Singing to a morning

Immaculate in conception.

Filled with the innocence

Of fresh awakenings.

 

A child,

Turning clouds

To cathedrals.

Playing hide and seek,

In the dappled shade,

Of new-born leaves.

 

A child,

Intoxicated,

 By the perfumes,

Of lilacs and daffodils.

Drinking dew drops,

From buttercups.

 

A child,

Building civilizations

In the soft earth.

Bathing in the sunshine

Of endless possibilities.

Oh the joy!

Haiku is a very popular form of poetry. It is simple in structure and yet forces the mind to care for words and syllables. I often use it as an introduction to poetry when I am working with kids in grade schools because it is less intimidating than many other forms and yet still gives them a sense of structure. (Three lines, five, seven and five syllables).


Originally, haikus usually focused on nature and the seasons, but in recent  years there seems to have developed a sense that any subject matter can apply. Red Sox fans spent weeks, a few years ago, sending in baseball haikus to the TV announcers. It was a slow season and everyone had fun writing about it.


In Sensory Haiku ( In the Cat's Eye, 2009) I chose four haikus that dealt with our senses. Although they deal primarily with sight and sound, they also provide a small message for that "sixth" sense that makes poetry so much fun.


Glenn K. Currie

 

Sensory Haiku

 A lonely bell buoy

Searches in the silent fog

Tolling for lost souls.

 

Flags fly everywhere,

Burning the air with color,

Red, white and blue fire.

In the morning mist

Everything is beautiful.

Misterious light.

 

The clap of thunder.

Applause for lightning’s flashes

Of striking brilliance.

 

There are sections of the large cities where gentle breezes fear to travel. Neighborhoods are close but neighbors are not. Air conditioning is putting a small mattress on the fire escape and hoping the star's cold light will find a way through the haze and break the heat.

This is the part of the city that most of us pretend isn't there. It is the place where residents sleep to avoid being awake and where dreams are cut short by sirens wails, or the frustrated screams of couples trapped together by the bars they put on their windows.

Cities are fascinating because they are like intricate machines filled with  millions of moving parts that all must function to make it work.

Wealth and poverty coexist short distances from each other, but the canyons are deep and the bridges few.

Canyons (In the Cat's Eye, 2009) is about life for those living in the those narrow spaces where the light seldom shines.

Glenn K. Currie

Canyons

 

The sun never visits

In these canyons.

It avoids

The shadowy places

Where buildings die.

 

The heat will come

Late in the afternoon,

Soaking the evening

With the sweat

Of the day.

 

An old white bra,

Built by a construction crew,

Hangs resignedly

Beside an out-of-shape

Muscle shirt.

 

The breeze they seek,

Lost its way

Two blocks from the river.

Mugged

By skyscrapers.

 

Soon the owners will gather

On iron grilles,

Above the dumpsters.

Hoping the darkness

Will shorten the night.

 

While we are on the subject of screwed up relationships, (see my last entry),I thought it might be useful to point out that sometimes girl/boy relationships are doomed from the start.
In my newest book, Surviving Seventh Grade, (Snap Screen Press, 2013), I deal with several new relationships. One is an evolving, love/hate duel with Snobby Donna, and one is with Becky, who actually seemed to like me until we "got off on the wrong foot".

The following entry explains it all.

Glenn K. Currie

 

The Dance

 

The dance didn’t turn out so good.

When I got out of the car

To pick up Becky

I stepped in dog stuff.

 

I had on my new white bucks.

The dog stuff was pretty noticeable

So I scraped my shoes off on the steps.

Becky stepped in it when she came out.

 

We tried to get it all off

But when we got in the car

We could all smell it.

Dad made us get out and try again.

 

It was a good thing it was a sock hop.

But Becky was still pretty mad.

She said only an idiot

Would wipe dog stuff on her steps.

 

Billy didn’t help. He told Becky

Her perfume smelled like farm animals.

She still had some on her socks.

I called Dad to take us home.

1967 was a wonderful year to be young and to be in Boston.
The Red Sox were in the middle of the "Impossible Dream" season, college students were everywhere, and my shipmates and I had six months of shore duty as we readied a brand new ship for Vietnam.
Those of us on my ship knew it would end in 1968 when we would find ourselves in the middle of the war.
I spent part of the summer with a lovely young woman who looked at the world with a naive sense of joy. She thought it was a world where you could dream and plan. I knew it was a world filled with infinite uncertainties.
We talked past each other for weeks. Finally, the conversations stopped as the war began to close in on me.
It was a time when, all over the country, people were travelling the same roads but crashing frequently as lives took sudden turns. The injuries bruised our bodies and minds, and sometimes our hearts.
Purple Hearts (In the Cat's Eye, 2009) is about the injuries that happened to many of us as the seedlings of war blew across the country.

Glenn K. Currie

Purple Hearts

 We lay in the summer,

Sheltered in tall grass.

Our resting place,

Not yet turned to straw.

She talked of futures,

In a world without one.

I watched a hawk circling above,

Seeking prey.

 

She was the sweet corn,

Picked fresh from the field,

Tasting of salt

And butter and sugar.

We passed the season

Pretending the winds

Would never grow colder,

 The days never older.

 

We didn’t really say goodbye.

We just stopped saying hello.

I sold my car in the fall,

And packed away my childhood,

Burying part of myself.

She phoned one day,

Just before I shipped out.

She called me a bastard.

We are all faced with surprises in life. Some are pleasant, wonderful moments. Others are things we never saw coming that can change our lives, for good or bad.

We live in a world where people say "nothing surprises me anymore", but it does.

Many of us spend our lives trying to be in control, when we live in a world determined to show us otherwise.

Sometimes we surprise ouselves when we strip away the covers and look at who we really are.

I wrote Surprises (In the Cat's Eye, 2009) as a commentary on just how little control we really have.

Any good magician can quickly show how little we can trust our own observations to prepare us for what is really happening.

A voracious reader will be constantly surprised by the world that is revealed between the pages of books.

But for all of us, the biggest surprise is always saved for the end.

Enjoy the journey.

Glenn K. Currie

 

Surprises

 

The surprise is in the magician

Who makes the elephant disappear.

The audience lined up

Like candles in a cake,

And blown away in a breath.

 

The surprise is in the boxes

Opened by performers in a play.

Colorful wrappings of paper egos

Stripped away in joyous haste,

Revealing naked children dancing.

The surprise is in the alphabet soup

Served in the sideshows of life.

Words eaten by hungry students

Hiding from the bullies

Who rule the world’s playgrounds.

 

 

The surprise is in the audience

When they learn they are the show.

When the dancing stops,

The magicians run out of tricks,

And the Earth stops turning.

 

In keeping with the Super Bowl tomorrow and all the endless hype that we have suffered through for the last two weeks, I thought it might be timely to put up National Anthem. This is a poem that I included in my collection In the Cat's Eye (Snapscreenpress, 2009). I wrote this one day when I was particularly disgusted with the attitude of a lot of our sports heroes who seem to forget that they are part of a team. it can easily apply to a few members of the teams playing in this year's superbowl.

Glenn K. Currie

National Anthem

 

It’s all about me!

It’s all about me!

Indubitably,

That’s how it should be.

Speaking candidly,

I’m in love with me.

Me! Me! Me!

It’s all about me!

 

It’s hypocrisy,

To didactically,

Preen endlessly,

About humanity.

Just turn on TV,

And you will see,

The reality.

It’s all about me!

 

So when up you stand,

With heart in your hand,

Prepared for the band’s

First song of the land,

Please sing after me,

“Oh say can you see,

The land of the free,

Is all about me”.