Cringe

4/9/2024 Failures and frustrations

Wrote an awful poem before the embarrassing eclipse

Let’s start with the response, written today, first (remember NaPoWriMo is about quantity not quality — oooooo that sounds defensive)

Cringe
“Fremdschämen (German) - to cringe, to feel second hand embarrassment”
Con/Jur/d, 4/9/2024

We hide under sweaters, blanket, book
when subjected to awkward, embarrassing 
situations on television, similarly, clouds
covered the eclipse, presenting a slight

change in the tone of light

We found ourselves reading a list
of the 10 cringiest things in poetry, and to our
horror, had collected, like merit badges
most of them

                     (We are of a certain age
                             find Dad jokes to be delightful)

Steve Martin built a career from this suspended
uncued tension, now It seems to be a form
of embodiment, a physical reminder

                        face flushes, eyes close
                        a certain kind of prayer
                        although the event is
                        inevitable,

Cringe is arbitrary line
                                   breaks

The use of the word ‘gossamer’ as in
      due to the occlusion of the eclipse we
     missed the gossamer optics
   leaves shaded, a vegetative 
10 armed Hindu god

“The speaker, who is the moon”
Is this not what we wrote the same day?
sometimes, the story is just a reminder

Our collective agreements

Are between awkward people
horrified by our culture, we declare

“We are together, faces hidden
unified by embarrassment at
how broken the over-culture has
become”

This rough beast doesn’t slouch
towards Bethlehem
rather it walks, and pratfalls

with bloody and awful

mortifying consequence.

Here’s the offending poem

Character sketch: Shadow & Moon
“How are you feeling? Sun Face Buddha,  Moon Face Buddha."  --  Ummon
Con/Jur/d, 4/8/2024


Shadow said, I died once
Moon said, try to remember 
we die everyday

When he said, end of history
we thought, end of death
hard to track the time trip
without b. & d.

When your only clock is
phases of light

whole months run
black & white

life & not-life
lose stochastic 
certainty

your personal foibles and kindnesses
attenuated, curved, stretched
concealed one moment,
revealed naked the next

We are a hollow white light, the colors

we see 

are light rejected
in 1’800 years, or 1 night, 
where can you and I find
sketches better

than this.

Another version of cringe, where I’m naked (almost)

Cringe
“Your writing’s ok, but you should smoke less, drink more” - The SUNY Buffalo literati 
Con/Jur/d, 4/9/2024

Named it, embarrassment therapy after               drinking a bottle of cheap port
sold at the same corner store as crack pipes
and foil

Standing in our underwear
under the baleful glare, of crackhouse security
who hoped our ranting would, distract
the pulsing blue/white lights, and the 
trigger-happy, uniformed gang
paid by the city

to mess things up
like the locals, pursuing their 
                                      Drug of Choice

Of course, we didn’t know “Fremdschämen” 
saw, the humiliated state not as an outside
coming in, rather an inside reminder

what it meant to be hopelessly human

Now, it seems, with all the trauma, mechanisms and,
propaganda there is a need to feel embarrassment
second hand, to have it in your body,
at a remove

like a movie, like a video game

Safer that way, now, we’re told
there is no one left,  who’ll come,
after the shouting is done, 
smelling of cheap perfume
animal funk, to the middle of the street
where we sat crying
saying, “Honey, 
you live over there?”

walking us back to safety

and home.

Now, y’all are caught up — later — after the light had changed — my wife stopped some young boys from harassing that goose — she always does the right thing

Much love,

Con/Jur/d, 4/9/2024

The Cringe Poetry Article referenced: THE TEN CRINGIEST THINGS IN POETRY- JESSE GAYNOR, Lit Hub