POEM: DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING MORE TO ADD?

Do You Have Anything

More to Add?

“It’s not what you use—

it’s what you don’t use!” *

Gig Young as “Jones” in an odd sort of role:

He plays a how-the-mighty-have-fallen-

too-bitter-to-talk late-Sixties,
Nevada desert-dweller type.

It’s not a role he’s usually

known for, that being the sophisticate,

or the dissolute (or most-resolute

and charming!) rake; or the befuddled

bachelor-father-uncle—so worldly

and busy, yet touchingly comic and naive

when it comes to small children,

strong women and pets.

He often played the hero—

the handsome bomber-pilot;

the cowboy-adventurer-rescuer type;

the sheriff or platoon leader,

or some other holdout

of post-War optimism.

I remember him as the dapper,

tuxedo-wearing Monte Carlo gambler,

the Seville Row-garbed spy,

the international jewel thief,

the professional heart-breaker!

He played the role 
of the devil-may-care manipulator—

so cynical and fearless, 
so well.

Usually his characters were too busy

living and loving to worry much
about paying no-never-mind.

He was a solid B-List Hollywood actor,

with his sardonic smile and laugh,

and carefully arched eyebrow.

He died in 1978. Before all this.

Before this became that.

In the movie,

the daughter of Jones’s

love interest is getting water from

an outdoor well pump.

As she drinks, she lets the water run,

prompting Jones to admonish the girl

about  her citified, spendthrift ways—

the irony being that he was once, himself,

a rich and high-flying playboy,

and a far greater wastrel

than the girl will ever be.

And we know she won’t be a wastrel

by the shape the story must take—

by the dove-tailing of opposites—

like cutting and crimping a sheet metal

to bring the two ends together.

(In high school shop class it took me forever

to cut and bend and bang a sheet of tin

into a tool box. But I did it. Eventually.)

The story of Jones—

going from city to desert,

from one end to the other,

like the girl and her mother,

is carefully shaped:

Snips and cuts are made;

film tossed to the editing-room floor

until all the opposites dove-tail neatly

to meet each other.

Sad beginnings bend into happy endings.

Nowadays, we’ve lost our opposites:

Our beginnings and endings

seem to go on forever.

There are no edges, no shapes.

And there’s nowhere to cut.

We can’t see the pattern of the toolbox.

We can’t see what we use and don’t use, anymore.

And we can’t add because we’ve forgotten how to subtract.

*from the TV movie— The Neon Ceiling (1971)

And with apologies for all I’ve mis-remembered.

For the liberties I’ve taken. For the trust I’ve shaken.

For races not run.

For every last undone.

For those I’ve un-gladded,

For all I’ve not added.

For my late subtractions

and inaction;

my blood-lettings and siphoned airs.

And for all that wishful climbing

of those wistful,

un-climbed stairs.

Of razors dulled, favours culled.

Of apples bitten, 
love letters unwritten.

For stones I’ve cast 
and rocks uncovered.

For days sped by, 
undiscovered.

For all the galls in all the stalls,

behind the walls 
of broken, plastic shopping malls,

with their airs of got

and their hot 
and carboned 
parking lots.

For the draping and aping,

the ever-so-clever 
shaping of the truth.

For this and that and everything 
from my age to youth:

For these and all and every,

and those still yet to come.

In sum I’ll say, "forgive me"

for what I shan’t become.

THIS IS ANOTHER POEM THAT I’M NOT SATISFIED WITH. (If only I could write the perfect poem! Is that even possible?) It’s a combination movie review, memoir and a look back on a previous era, so it’s kind of a hodgepodge, cut and crimped together like a toolbox I made in shop class, one time. I was thinking about the optimism of the time following World War Two and how that gradually gave way to things like the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the Arms Race and all those other cheerful contests and conflicts and social disorders, and I guess I was thinking about how this type of zeitgeist affects people and society. I skewed all this (awkwardly, I think) through the lens of the movie actor Gig Young and the types of roles he played throughout his career, from victorious GIs in WWII, to cowboys with white hats, to movie heroes in the 6os and 70s. All the roles, the movies, the times seemed to be on some kind of upward trajectory to—what? a better world? Perhaps. Even if it was one seen from a narrow, Hollywood perspective.

     I guess part of what I'm getting at is this gradual loss of purpose or trajectory, today. We don’t know what to do anymore; the signs on the road ahead are either missing or out-of-date. Gig Young’s line from the movie that I quote at the start of the poem, in part, asks the question we all ask: What can we do? How can we make sense of our lives, of our place in the world? The poem seems to suggest that we need to let go, to “learn to subtract” again—something we’ve forgotten how to do. Perhaps it’s a call to be environmental stewards—to replenish our planet; that’s one interpretation. After all, Gig Young’s character, Jones, is certainly vexed with the young girl as she wastes water while taking a drink at the outdoor pump. She doesn’t ‘add’ anything in Jones’s point of view; she wastes valuable water.

     But there is an additional point made about no longer having “opposites”, that we can’t see the endpoints on any continuum we might imagine, and thus we don’t know where we can stand because we can’t see either extreme. Perhaps this means that, unless we're careful, we can end up at one end or the other, unbalanced in our lives. I know this is a bit unclear (and it is a bit unclear to me, rest assured). But our lives involve ‘editing’ or ‘clipping’ or ‘crimping’ or ‘folding’ things to bring those extremes of adding and subtracting into some kind of balance. My reading of “adding” and “subtracting” is pretty simple: adding means giving back in some manner—to others, to our society, to our planet. Subtracting is taking away, but the speaker says that we have “forgotten” how to subtract, which might mean that we are unaware of how to take away just what we need (like a bucket of water without wasting water). It’s a rather simple message. Simple messages aren’t necessarily stupid ones.

     The postscript seems to be more of a personal apology on the part of the speaker for having lived his life at those extremes, and of not having attempted to find any balance or harmony. And perhaps that's a common failing in a lot of people, especially these days. The speaker ends his apology on a note of despair, stating he is incapable of change. That his apology is in the form of an open, unaddressed letter suggests he is at a remove from others, perhaps because of the “extreme” choices he made throughout his life; he can't talk directly to others, anymore. Though, the fact that the speaker is aware of his situation and does indeed compose his apology, even if it is tacked on at the end, gives a glimmer of hope that change is not impossible.

     Finally, the exasperated tone in the title makes it pretty clear what the author feels toward the speaker!

     I don’t know if I care for this poem. The postscript seems to be tacked on, and I'm not sure if it isn’t just unnecessary ranting. But my favourite image is the “carboned” parking lots. For some reason, I've got a fixation about parking lots. (“Pave paradise and put up a parking lot.”)

     Enjoy this poem, or go make your own toolbox! 

Cheers. Jake

*I don’t know if this is relevant, but in 1978 Gig Young shot his new wife, Kim Schmidt, then committed suicide. Somewhere along the way he had lost his sense of balance.