#75

"is it rude to stare?"

                first published @ Selcouth Station

 

                               💦 NOW available to own in BLUE 4 U

If it's "Lonely at the Top," imagine what it must be like for those of us at the bottom!

& The term "Druidia blue dot" is referring to the GPS blue dot that disappears the further a tunnel is traveled. This poem is in the blue water section, and Druidia is an imagistic reference to Spaceballs' blue planet, where Dot kicks it. Dot is every bride's droid of honor, and the name of the C3PO character Lorene Yarnell gave life to. I wasn't sure if I should capitalize Dot in the poem because that's how obsessive I am, but I decided to keep it lowercase so the GPS image comes through first before disappearing in the depressing, tubular, riddle of a ride.

& This poem started with the title.  Normally my eyes are rolled so far to the back of my head when I take the ever-so reliable metro that I'm riding blind, but sometimes I notice things. Once a child was staring at another MTA customer, the father scolded him for doing so and said, “Stop! It’s rude to stare.”  I couldn’t get that phrase out of my head.  “Is it rude to stare?”  I did not grow up in a city, but if I had, I don’t even know how my brain would have processed all the stimulation.  I actually think I might not have stared at anyone or anything and just kept my head down; I remember being terrified of my own shadow.  I suppose I ended up agreeing with the father, because he would be doing a disservice to his boy otherwise, as it is dangerous to look at people.  I’ve seen many fights start that way— just looking at somebody.  I mean look what just happened there. I made an opinion about someone I do not know. Better just say focused on how lousy and unreliable public transportation is (sometimes or too often?).

& Anyways, as I kept repeating that line over and over again in my head, I thought of Robert Shields’s eyes popping out and staring through the screen while performing as a robot in his sketch, "The Breakfast Sketch," with then wife, Lorene Yarnell.  I first saw them perform that sketch on the one and only, TMS, in its fourth season.

There was a lot of different directions to take with the title and what is just really spot on performance by the duet— avante garde— ahead-of-its-time genius. I thought I might stay there, but, full circle, Shields & Yarnell came back into my head another time I was taking the metro, watching someone perform the robot.  When this happened, I said I ought to center this poem underground...

In a Station of the Metro 

by ezra pound

"The apparition of these faces in the crowd:

Petals on a wet, black bough."

@ Selcouth Station

"is it rude to stare?"

IMPORTANT: This is the only episode in the entirety of the series of The Muppet Show to feature an ABBA song.  How amazing would it have been if ABBA was on the show?  Henson felt the same way, and he tried, but their schedule would just not allow for it.  Being a fan of ABBA, I wanted to sneak them into this poem in more than one way, so I originally thought, before "is it rude to stare?" I wanted a poem that would consist of four quatrains with an ABBA rhyme scheme, but I ended up dropping the idea.