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If you wonder about the title of the book...Or are one of those people who don't get frustrated with a long intro to get to the book, here is a prologue.  It's only 2 pages on paper so don't worry if you can't stomach long ones, and sorry if you craved more...

 

            What is Pessimistic Optimism?  What I think it represents is a succinct way to describe a theme that shows up in many of the poems here: the battle in the mind and heart that lives between the various dichotomies of the world, the dark and the light, virtues and vice, the id and the ego, etc.  You know, the normal struggles.  The disgust of intolerance, greed, bigotry etc., and the pure admiration of beauty, kindness, and compassion all swirling around in one Dude’s mind trying to get through his day/life.  Trying to understand life, or make sense of it. 

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            It started while I was back in college (I wrote a few poems before that, but then I went dormant for a while).  I suppose there was angst in general that was emerging in my mind with some sort of clarity or analysis, rather than just the typical anger and confusion that was preceding this in my teen years that night.  I was happy at the same time too, hence the optimism.  I can’t quite remember what the conversation was about preceding a walk to the library around 7pm to do some studying, but it got me fired up.  I know that I was having an analytical conversation about something with my buddies in college.  We did that almost every night at dinner, that’s how I know.  I know we should have been talking about parties or girlie stories or something, but we were always talking about why people behave the way they do at parties, school, work, etc.; we were always analyzing human behavior.   Subjects like the following were discussed: Pondering as to why perhaps, as we perceived it, that a girl of our age will go after a guy who would never talk about why girls seem to not go after guys who analyze these things, therefore causing us to not talk to girls.  It leaves you a bit confused.  Do you see the paradoxical conundrum?  I’m not sure if that’s used correctly, but it sounds deep, or maybe trite?  Depending on your perspective.  You get to make that call.  That’s pretty cool right?  You can choose (another theme).

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            The point being was that I was sort of thinking political, sort of emotional, and had a feeling of a re-awakening of what might be “spiritual” on that walk.  Whatever was going on in world news was a bit disturbing, like it always is.  Somehow the rhymes, the poem sort of started to pop in my head.  It was a way to deal with the disgust of different ideas in my thoughts of how the world is at its’ ugliest and how that strays so far from the way it could be at its' most beautiful.  How human’s are at once some of the greatness of this world and also the plague of it.  The poem was Stagnation: Addicted to Pain.  To this day it is one of the harshest poems that I’ve ever seen.  The idea was: lay out the things I have disdain for as ugly as they could be.  The ugly truth of the world has to be highlighted by a spotlight before we can deal with it, in my opinion.  Maybe like the concept that the first step in solving a problem is admitting that you might have one.  

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            Let’s face the demons head on, let’s look at the sins of the world from a first person point of view.  Let’s do a little thought provoking because you’ll never understand a problem if you don’t at least analyze it first.  And if it is not more than just mere venting, that’s still a pretty good redemption of time: spent reading or writing a poem.  I came to some realization that these poems were therapeutic to me.  I had little desire to put them out in the public…but some 20 years later I thought maybe they’ll be cool for someone else?  If one person read a poem and it affected them for the positive, it would be worth any criticism from “haters,” or legitimate critics.  I’m too old to care anyway, and would be surprised if many people read them.  Who reads poems?  I don’t know many people who do. 

 

I’ll tell you this right now; that if you look hard enough in these poems, you’ll realize that I don’t have the greatest vocabulary, I sometimes repeat myself, and I’m still quite juvenile in much of my brain, and hope and expect it to stay that way.   My life is mathematically and actuarially more than half over at this point, so I suppose it's time to not really care.  

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These poems do much of no good just sitting in a drawer or on a computer hard drive.  Might as well get them out so someone can read them and feel better about themselves that they could do better (negative-I’m sure a lot of you can), or that they have felt the same way, even if it’s ugly (positive!).   

 

Many, the early written poems in particular, seemed real ugly and pessimistic.  But if we could take all that negative energy, either in the world or in yourself and try to spin it into something positive, we might reduce pain.  Not a new concept I know, but it’s too good to not keep in motion. To elaborate: know the ugly like the back of your hand, don’t shy away, and look at it square in the face and acknowledge it, because then you can really take it on.  Maybe pessimistic optimism is the opposite of being delusional about problems?  Let’s be real, there is some ugly realities out there.  It was always my approach to know the ugly parts of the world and not to be afraid to be ugly in a poem, but be afraid to do ugly in real life.  At least try. Know the ugly, get down and roll around in the muck of life’s concepts, know you are a human and you mess up, cause pain, get your heart broken, disappoint, and then try to see the beauty. The beauty in the ugly, the resiliency you can create all within your mind, in your hands through your actions as you continue through this world that emanates out and ripples ultimately to help form what the world is as you drift along with time into the future.

 

            Or maybe it’s just a bunch of poems with sex, violence,  and profanity with a few redeeming lines so I can defend myself.  Maybe it’s all ribald crap.  Some whacko’s attempt to deal with his own morbid thoughts through poems, of all things! Scribblings that should have been kept in some drawer, or better yet burned due to the embarrassment of someone understanding the author’s screwed up mind, if even after death!  Who’s death?  Yours?  Mine?  All mankind?  Ouch, I hope not yet.   You be the judge if you dare!  Or are not bored enough, or are really bored to read further…