L is for: Six Degrees of LOATHING

Or, to be entirely accurate (and doubly literary), fear and loathing.

I am a big fan of the whole six degrees of separation idea. I’m always charting my connections to see how far afield I can go, what unexpected people I can get to. My aunt knew Barbara Jordan, so all kinds of connections there. My mom dated Freddy Cole, so a ton more there. A crazy teacher I once hired gave me a connection to Trotsky. You get the idea.

Generally speaking, I love this game. I love the Kevin Bacon version of this game. When Fox was first becoming a Lord of the Rings fangirl, I made her a Six Degrees of LOTR book, connecting all of the trilogy’s principal cast to Bacon. This was, of course, super easy to do. The man really does connect to everyone.

But the connections to be discovered aren’t always great. I just learned that I am only three short degrees from THOTUS¹.

To be honest, I already knew I could get to that sunken place in four degrees. Shortening that path to three … well, it hurts a bit, makes me wish that sometimes the world wouldn’t be so small.

But I can’t write a chōka for THOTUS. I mean, I can, but I refuse to.

_____

Love Lost

Did I really write
a poem about old lovers?
Why yes, yes I did.
I guess it’s true: anything
can turn into art.
Of course: love is poetic,
so that makes some sense.
Poems pick at the emotion —
feelings, not the men
not the flawed and fallible
simple, human men.
I’m sure it’s better this way.
The men that I’ve loved
and the others, the lovers
they can all be spared
my ink, my rancor, my scorn —
I’ll turn aside. Write elsewhere.

__________
¹ Titular Head of These United States

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A chōka is a Japanese form poem with a specific syllable count per line. The shortest form of chōka  is: 5 / 7 / 5 / 7 / 5 / 7 / 5 / 7 / 7. The 5- and 7-syllable lines can repeat as many times as needed. The poem’s end is signaled by the extra 7-syllable line. The final five lines can be used to summarize the body of the poem.

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