Degree of difficulty. Too little, too much, just right?

Poetry’s on my mind, but the question applies to life. Too easy bores, too hard frustrates, but is any satisfaction sweeter than when hard turns easy, that moment you magically “get” something and the lightbulb goes off? Mostly I’ve forgotten the summer I was six but not that instant my two-wheeler didn’t topple. I can still feel the sun.

Appetites for difficulty differ. Some thrill to the Sunday crossword, others shudder. Though I love words, I’m hopeless at crosswords, my mind doesn’t work that way.

Raymond Carver’s prosody is so easy he hardly seems to be composing, just talking. The lope of his diction contrasts with the angst of his subject matter. He led a hard rough life, suffered sadness, boozed, died young from too much smoking. You almost have to air your clothes after reading him they’re so smoky. Yet for all his sorrows, body and mind, he’s happy. His lilt signals that. Telling his story entertains him, the class clown.

Listen to his romp below. I love this poem, wish I’d written it. It seems so easy but it isn’t. I don’t envy fancy poems with intricate rhymes and rhythms – they’re not in my wheelhouse. But why couldn’t I make one like this? (I feel the same way about cooking souffles.)

The poem is funny though it’s not meant to be, it just is, as life sometimes is. The title establishes the situation: “Locking Yourself Out, Then Trying to Get Back In.” Read it before reading my next three paragraphs. If Carver’s poem doesn’t win you, no point jawing why it might.

Those first five lines make me love the guy:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedYou simply go out and shut the doorwithout thinking. And when you look backat what you’ve doneit’s too late. If this soundslike the story of a life, okay.

We’ve all done it, right, locked ourselves out, and felt dumb? And if you want to make a metaphor out of it, okay, we’ve all done that too. Poetry, he’s proclaiming without proclaiming, isn’t just for John Harvards. Existence brims with significance, everybody’s, if you pause and look.

Now he’s going to tell us his story – in street vocabulary, not a trace of snootiness; we could be having a beer or three at the White Horse:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedIt was raining. The neighbors who hada key were away. I tried and triedthe lower windows. Staredinside at the sofa, plants, the tableand chairs, the stereo set-up.My coffee cup and ashtray waited for meon the glass-topped table, and my heartwent out to them.

An ordinary guy, right? Then tally all he’s told us about himself. He lives alone now. Not rich, a worker. When he doesn’t know an exact word, he tosses in a sloppy one (“set-up”). A tender heart. (I said he doesn’t rhyme, but don’t be fooled. Trace the seven long-a sounds through these six simple sentences and observe how, after the final comma, the aural weather changes.)

Now for a little slapstick – breaking and entering his own house. But then the sight of his workspace arrests him. He sees himself – and yeh, he’s a happy guy, but he’s been a shit, too, really hurt folks he loved, and that’s not so easy to forget. We can detach ourselves from ourselves, become bemused observers of our own existence, only we can’t. But fuck all this feeling, fella, he’s got work to do, deadlines, needs to get back to his desk, so

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedI bashed that beautiful window.And stepped back in.

***

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedLocking Yourself Out, Then Trying to Get Back In

You simply go out and shut the doorwithout thinking. And when you look backat what you’ve doneit’s too late. If this soundslike the story of a life, okay.

It was raining. The neighbors who hada key were away. I tried and triedthe lower windows. Staredinside at the sofa, plants, the tableand chairs, the stereo set-up.My coffee cup and ashtray waited for meon the glass-topped table, and my heartwent out to them. I said, Hello, friends,or something like that. After all,this wasn’t so bad.Worst things had happened. Thiswas even a little funny. I found the ladder.Took that and leaned it against the house.Then climbed in the rain to the deck,swung myself over the railingand tried the door. Which was locked,of course. But I looked in just the sameat my desk, some papers, and my chair.This was the window on the other sideof the desk where I’d raise my eyesand stare out when I sat at that desk.This is not like downstairs, I thought.This is something else.

And it was something to look in like that, unseen,from the deck. To be there, inside, and not be there.I don’t even think I can talk about it.I brought my face close to the glassand imagined myself inside,sitting at the desk. Looking upfrom my work now and again.Thinking about some other placeand some other time.The people I had loved then.

I stood there for a minute in the rain.Considering myself to be the luckiest of men.Even though a wave of grief passed through me.Even though I felt violently ashamedof the injury I’d done back then.I bashed that beautiful window.And stepped back in.