Such Sweet Sorrow

Over the past week I've gotten angrier about the "read your email or else" commuter campus job. This morning, although it's much more interesting to come up with new ways to explore the relationship between Othello and Desdemona for tomorrow's class, it's clear to me that working on that is pretty much only for my own enjoyment, and if I was smart I'd be turning to the piles of administrative details that need attention for my other part-time job, at my local college campus.

I am in the mood to recite this poem, Such Sweet Sorrow, by Ethan Coen:

If there were times
I slighted you
I'm sorry now
There weren't more.

So many times
I fought with you
But, sadly, never
Broke your jaw.

Some days, I know,
I failed to show
You what you meant to me,

However it
Is hard to hit
That hard that frequently.

I wanted wine and roses and
You gave me marcs and thorns,
And also marks of black and blue
and shiny cuckold's horns.

I do regret
The way I let
You always get my goat,,

But don't repent
The time I spent
With hands wrapped round your throat.

I would have loved your laughter
Were it not at my expense,
And hope you will hereafter
Be amused by hell's torments.

So should we meet
Upon the street
You should know why, instead

Of hailing you
With love, I do
So with a hail of lead.

Yes, so satisfying. I do realize that I need to cool off before I make any kind of final move. I could probably still get a class or two here and there, go on with the kind of commuting life I've had, but my pride doesn't want to let me. If they don't appreciate what all I've done for them, let them try to go on without me.

But I won't say that. Yet. Today I'm just going to enjoy the Shakespearean quotation of the poem's title and wallow in the deadly sin of wrath.

The Drunken Driver Has the Right of Way

At this weekend's tea and poetry reading, the guest who came from farthest away (Colorado) brought the poem that was the biggest surprise to me. I liked it so much that I started leafing through the volume and she finally had to leave it for me so I could read the rest. The volume is by Ethan Coen (of movie-maker fame) and this is the title poem:

The Drunken Driver Has the Right of Way

The loudest have the final say,
The wanton win, the rash hold sway,
The realist's rules of order say
The drunken driver has the right of way.

The Kubla Khan can butt in line;
The biggest brute can take what's mine;
When heavyweights break wind, that's fine;
No matter what a judge might say,
The drunken driver has the right of way.

The guiltiest feel free of guilt;
Who care not, bloom; who worry, wilt;
Plans better laid are rarely built
For forethought seldom wins the day;
The drunken driver has the right of way.

The most attentive and unfailing
Carefulness is unavailing
Wheresoever fools are flailing;
Wisdom there is held at bay;
The drunken driver has the right of way.

De jure is de facto's slave;
The most foolhardy beat the brave;
Brass routs restraint; low lies high's grave;
When conscience leads you, it's astray;
The drunken driver has the right of way.

It's only the naivest who'll
Deny this, that the reckless rule;
When facing an oncoming fool
The practiced and sagacious say
Watch out--one side--look sharp--gang way.

However much you plan and pray,
Alas, alack, tant pis, oy we,
Now--heretofore--'til Judgment Day,
The drunken driver has the right of way.

The message of this poem is, in essence, what I said to Ron last week before I set out on my commute after a night of freezing drizzle that had coated all the city streets, but which wasn't so bad even on the little two-lane highways I have to travel for the first half hour of my hour-long journey: "I'll be careful, but it's the guy in the other lane I'm going to have to keep an eye on!"