Cringe
4/9/2024 Failures and frustrations
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.
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.
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.
Much love,
Con/Jur/d, 4/9/2024
The Cringe Poetry Article referenced: THE TEN CRINGIEST THINGS IN POETRY- JESSE GAYNOR, Lit Hub