On the basis of Race or breed

Recently I leapt out of bed with a brilliant flash of insight. It followed months of rumination about letters to the editor we had gotten. They were letters prompted by stories Real Change had run featuring non-White People. The letters’ writers said they wouldn’t buy the paper anymore, because we were always putting down the White Race.

Reading those letters through the tears of laughter it occurred to me that hidden deep beneath the expressed froths of the letter writers there may be this sediment of truth: We have NOT been glorifying White People in the manner to which they have been accustomed, during, oh, recorded Western history, or so.

But then, last Wednesday morning, it hit me: we ALSO haven’t glorified heterosexuals, or the breeding they do for all of us.

I mean I know you don’t have to be heterosexual to breed. We’ve all heard of the occasional gay guy who steels up his courage, closes his eyes, charges into the breach, and does one for the Pope. But heteros (like me!) do it (not sex, we’re talking about procreation here) with a grace and style that can come only from native-born talent.

Anyway, so I had that brilliant flash of insight Wednesday morning, and then I read the news. And there was Washington Supreme Court Assistant Associate Chief Jester Barbara Madsen stating that the Washington Defense of Marriage Act “is constitutional because the legislature was entitled to believe that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers procreation essential to survival of the human race,” blah blah, blah, “furthers the well-being of children,” BS, blah, BS, blah, “biological parents,” harumph, harumph, BS, blah.

Madsen’s words finally got through to me. What a huge disservice we have done, not only to the heterosexual community, but also to the entire human race, which depends so essentially, as she says, on that community for our vicarious continued existence on this planet (through descendants of that community, who shall represent those lessers of us who never step up to the procreative plate.)

Here’s what I see Chief Breeder Steward Madsen really saying: She’s saying human breeders are like pandas. Pandas are cute and sexy, to each other, sure, but skittish. Zoo keepers spend years, decades, coaxing nervous, sensitive, pandas into the sack, using imported Chinese bamboo leaves, playing imported soft flute music, and above all, insuring that there are no distractions.

Think of Genghis Khan, perhaps the greatest heterosexual breeder of all time. Genghis Khan’s people respected his needs. They provided him with plenty of women, quiet tents, and pillows. Had they not, there might not be a Mongolia today. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I wouldn’t want to live in a world without a Mongolia.

Look. When there’s all this hoopla and raucous going on of gays same-sex marrying here and civil-unioning there (have you seen those people dance at their weddings?) our beautiful, valuable, but emotionally fragile breeders can’t mate to the degree that the survival of our species requires. “I’m sorry dear, two men just married in Skamania; I can’t focus tonight.”

Real Change has made matters so much worse by never once helping the delicate breeders of Washington State feel good about their selves so that they could settle down in the warm glow of constant emotional strokes, and get it on for Humankind.

So, belatedly, I want to say what great people heterosexuals are, and to tell you all that we at Real Change promise in the future to glorify our state’s prized heterosexual breeders the way we should have been doing all along. The same way, in fact, that we should have been extolling the greatness of White People all along.

Therefore, beginning next week and each week after look for our new Real Change Pro-Creator feature, replacing the current Real Change Agent stories on Page 3.

With all of us, including Real Change, working in solidarity with the breeding community, our great state may yet be the Mongolia of the fourth millennium!

Pile Their Heads . . . HIGH

Pile Their Heads . . . HIGH

I am an editor of the Real Change. There are others as well. I have a headache. This is not a coincidence. So I am impelled to quote Genghis Khan who once said (speaking of editors who insist on "altering" other's columns), "Pile their heads high! Pile their heads higher than the pyramids at Giza! Then we shall drink their beer and eat their chips!"

As I report this I am in NO way being mean and/or politically incorrect. Consistent with being a "differently expressive" person, I am simply falsely quoting Genghis Khan, a homeless role model, in order to convey my personal feelings in an oblique yet wholly appropriate manner.

But what, you ask, has this to do with poetry? Why, EVERYTHING! For headaches are the stuff of life, and the stuff of life is the stuff of beer and chips, and the stuff of beer and stuff is stuffing, and turkeys are involved and excuse me I will begin over.

NOTHING hits the SPOT better when your head THROBS than BLANK VERSE, n'est-ce pas? Ah, the pounding exclamations to compensate for the lack of meter, the odd placement of words to compensate for the lack of rhyme! Ah, the LACK of RHYME ITSELF! HOLD ME BACK!

So anyway, having written blank verse all my life and not known it, I have finally penned a serious work of the genre on purpose, which follows:

Blank Verse on Purpose

or, Opus 8, I Have a Headache

© Dr. Wes Browning

i am NOT DEAD!

YET:

i am CARRION!

SOCIAL WORKERS! LAWYERS! MY EX-WIFE!

MISSIONARIES! REPORTERS! DOCTORS!

FUNGI! CIVIL LIBERTARIANS! CRABS!

OTHER POETS!

ALL want a PIECE of ME!

and NO ONE goes away

HUNGRY!

(finis)

Better than aspirin! Thanks for reading and special thanks this month to J. Feelgood and M. Schmerzgarten for their much enjoyed comments.