Craig Kurtz

In Praise of Losers

“However high the praise, there’s nothing worse 

Than sharing honors with the universe. 

Esteem is founded on comparison: 

To honor all men is to honor none.”

— Molière, The Misanthrope; trans. Richard Wilbur. 

Let us praise the insecure,

the mediocre & the dull;

let us laud the guileless sod,

the hapless dolt & witless clod.

Here is an era epicene,

where puissance promotes gangrene;

where weakness is a virtue earned

& victimhood makes honor roll.

Who suffers most compels the best,

who is oppressed has highest rank;

it’s echelon turned inside out

& schadenfreude made valiant.

Where once the tyrannized rebelled,

they now have meetings to shed tears;

they hug & moan & wait their turn

to one-up the last sad story told.

There is no end to specialness

conferred upon laments & plaints;

establishing adversity

endows effete monocracy.

Identity is negative

& persecution the new boast;

status, once derived from skill,

now goes to those who snivel most.

Let’s elevate the booboisie

& celebrate their wretchedness;

how ’bout we outlaw excellence

to consecrate incompetence.

Now that everyone’s a laureate

distinction doesn’t mean a whit;

when high praise goes to all maumets

valor offends, or else its wit submits.

Three cheers for the dumb,

let’s hear it for the chumps;

the addlepated get first prize,

all winners should be penalized!

***

Synopsis of a Courtship

It’s the gentlest storm,

this barometric pressure

presaging a unison.

Curiosity infers a missing.

Trees may sway in the wind,

a future imploring their skin.

Denial unravels when it’s confronting

the problem of rain.

It’s the quietest of storms,

these exchanges of words

exploring respective similitudes.

Assessing foretokens a longing.

The soil absorbs information

to succor refurbished nutrition.

Circumspection submits to acuteness,

confessing the problem of thirst.

It’s the most complaisant of storms,

this ushering of puissance

amidst convergent elements.

Motion concedes desideratum.

Clouds unfetter unsettled satiety

upon earthly circuits of covetousness.

Parsimony capitulates to quenching,

attesting the dilemma of appetence.

It’s the tranquilest of phenomena,

this interosculated motion

redounding dialectics of pith.

Reciprocation is indispensible.

Roots will swell and luxuriate with weal,

transmitting data to enraptured land.

Ambivalence expires, for all matter is made facile

when rudiments of cupidity impetrate the soil.

***

The Altruistic Art of Unpopular Complaint

CHORUS:

Arguments & squabbles,

contretemps & quibbling;

all social progress does begin

with bellyaching & complaints.

Way back in history when people lived in caves,

spiders were for lunch & nightcrawlers, midnight snacks.

When leaves from trees were clothes

& globs of mud warmed up one’s toes

there was a person who declared, “This rather sucks,

I’m sick of it, we need a source of heat.”

This individual proceeded to rub sticks,

thinking that the friction

might create a calid flash. But hark!

Everyone in that town — deep in caves underground —

admonished him (or was it her),

“Desist & cease your ceaseless gripes.

We have lived a long, full life shivering & liking ice

& we’ll have no complaining here or, worse,

remediation thus; it’s radical — nay, dangerous —

to rub at sticks or coax a flame, 

it’s always best to stay the same,

tralatitious & inane, & so you must submit to us —

progress is a villainy.” Of course, this person

rubbing sticks did not desist & — lo! behold! —

made a fire which quite contrived to make

a warmer world. The genesis of this great deed

wasn’t necessarily raw food or caves or cold

or ice but dissatisfaction & remonstrances

which authored forward motion in the

human race.

CHORUS:

Expostulations & polemics,

objurgations & philippics;

social motion is the story

of invectives & chagrin.

Next, there came an era when

all the people stayed in place —

the towns were small, the lives were dull

& everybody felt crowded. 

There was a chap (or perhaps a lass)

who had the thought of travelling 

across the sea with boats that float

to find some other place 

where things were new.

It started with “Ah, screw this town!

I just can’t stand to be confined

with the same faces everyday. Nothing’s

new, it’s always trite, this & that all day & night —

it’s tedious!” But, lo! behold! this chap (or lass)

commenced to build a ship (or two)

but all at once the whole town said,

“You must desist, the world is small,

you’ll never get a better place, it won’t work,

you’ll not succeed — just be a rustic bumpkin

like the rest of us.” Well, we can all appreciate

our lucky stars that tack went flat

& ships did sail & lands were found

& railroads built & here we are, computering

& sipping Cokes & all that jazz — & all because

disrelishments & abhorrence

is part & parcel of progress.

CHORUS:

Deprecations & dischord,

brickbats & disparagements;

evolvement of society

begins with sour obloquy.

Pissing & moaning, kvetching & bitching,

where would we be if we had 

no disgruntlement?

If everyone was happy

& contentment was the rule,

who would make a lightbulb

or invent a ball-point pen?

There wouldn’t be improvements

like the wheel or shaving cream,

penicillin, instant coffee or the

DSL connection. We’d still be

eating bugs, scratching fleas &

feudal serfs; we wouldn’t have

the woman’s vote, postmodernism or ice cubes.

Feeding Christians to the lions

& the Spanish Inquisition,

burning witches at the stake

or shrinking heads of other tribes —

these were rules that had to go

& challenging the status quo

started with a grunt that articulated gripes,

then evolved into complaints & blossomed forth

new governments. “Be the change within yourself”

is what all despots will suggest, but

complacency is fit for fools

whereas sedition is the gift of saints.

CHORUS:

Expletives & calumnies,

epithets & billingsgate;

amelioration of the world

began when the first curse was hurled.1

1. “The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.” — Sigmund Freud.

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