Of course, it goes without saying that you should not be superstitious.
You are, after all, hearing this from an atheist who believes in God
But is still an atheist because anything you cannot verify by evidence is superstition.
For instance, your mother probably stressed when you were growing up,
You should wait at least an hour after eating lunch before going into the pool…
Or in the ocean, the Iowa River, or the roped-off area of the lake for designated swims…
Because you will get a cramp and curl up in a pretzel pose and drown to death.
But studies using science show that this is foofy nonsense… a superstition.
Still, you do it the way your mother said because she loved you and was always
Looking for ways to keep you from drowning or any other kind of random death.
Or another example is the way that Mickey always capitalizes the beginning of each line
Even if it starts in the middle of a sentence which is against basic sentence rules.
Which he does because this is not just a glob of nonsense sentences…
It is allegedly a free-verse poem.
So, Superstitions are something you do because it is a habit or a false belief
That gives you comfort somehow… Even if it is only feeding an obsession.
So, don’t get me started on avoiding the number 13. Because you know about the Knights Templar
And the terrible things that happened to them on the 13th of the month on a Friday in 1307 A.D.
Even though you know you have no gold and treasure coveted by the King of France
You are still wary of all instances of the number 13 intruding on your life.
Wait a minute… are you unsure whether you know what the heck Mickey means?
Well, you are fortunate enough to live in the computer and internet age… You can Google it.
Catch a Falling Star 
Get Up and Do!
It is daunting when bad fortune comes in waves, drowning us in debt, suffering, disabling illness, financial reversals, and so many more things I have been through this last year personally, so that we want to lie down and never get up.
But, I am not dead yet… and there is poetry to be lived.
I say that as one of the world’s fifty worst poets who ever lived. (In my defense, I am a humorist, and I write bad poetry on purpose.) My inspiration for the living of poetry comes from reading and living good poetry. I live because there is poetry by Walt Whitman. Of course, also Shakespeare… whoever he really was. And I understand that much of what I have learned in my brief and stupidly-lived 61 years comes from the poetry of the visionary poet I pictured above. Do you know him? If you have never read his poetry, you haven’t truly lived the poetry you need to live.
This poet taught me that “Being, not doing, is my first love.” Of course, if I am satisfied with just sitting on my bed and “being” through most of my day, I will starve to death and not “be” anymore. But he has taught me that what is essential is already within me. There is wisdom and power in Uncle Ted’s poetry. (Yes, I know I am not really related to him, but that’s only physical and overlooks the spiritual.) I must partake of it to live.
If you are bored by poetry about plants in a greenhouse under bright lights, or you can never understand what the poet means when he says, “My father was a fish”, then you need to practice reading poetry more. You don’t truly understand what poetry is, and what it is for… yet.
And I am sure you have probably concluded from all of this that I am a fool and a bad poet and I have no right to try to tell you who and what a truly great poet is. But, fool that I am, I know it when I see it. It is there in the verse, the hideous and horrible… the beautiful and the true. And if I know anything at all worth telling about the subject, it is this; Ted Roethke is a great American poet. And he writes poetry that you need to read… and not only read but live.
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Filed under artists I admire, commentary, insight, inspiration, poetry, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Tagged as living poetry, poetry, Theodore Roethke