I was a Danger Poet

A couple of months ago I woke up in the middle of the night from a dream about a meeting of The Danger Poet Society. I got up at 3am, put on an old fuzzy purple bathrobe and the best sheepskin slippers, and sat down at the computer and searched for Danger Poet Society — so I could find a meeting. In the dream these meetings were everywhere, kind of like AA meetings where you get a sponsor and there's snacks, fellowship and sometimes diner runs — but there's no requirement to abstain from anything except maybe abstaining from blocking all the art that deserves to be arted? It sounds weird to my awake ears, but pretty damn cool.

Anyway, Google didn't know anything at all about any kind of Danger Poet Society — then I remembered that "Danger Poet" is the title of one of the poems in my chapbook, and did a facepalm. My brain had tricked me into getting out of bed to sign up for a thing that I had to create before I could sign up for it! Thanks, brain.

So I bought the domain dangerpoetsociety.com and let the dream energy guide me through a process of creating a temporary website for it (I really don't know how to do that kind of stuff). It's there!

I've told a few people about it and a few people have signed up, (and made some basic graphic design stuff about it that I'm shamelessly going to try to profit from to afford more of my favorite foods), but there haven't been any meetings yet. It feels like I'm the elder minority of the group and it's not mine to call the meeting. This isn't my world anymore, but I can do what I can to pave the way though the bullshit my generation was complicit about to help the kids who now need all the help they can get. It's their world now. The "they" I speak of above are still children, and the ones not even born yet — us of the age to be reading this are all complicit in some way. It's ok — it's all we knew and we sure as hell didn't start the fire — but now that we're starting to see stuff we can't unsee, we have the opportunity to be Danger Poets about it, if nothing else.

It's time to hold space in the cracks of the old paradigm so stuff actually trickles down, and there's room for the new paradigm to grow roots. Otherwise, we fall into a dystopian hellscape — and haven't we had quite enough of that vibe already?

How about something inclusive, and kind?

I have an idea for a Danger Poet Anthology, and I've been working on ideas for my contribution to it. I imagine we'll discuss what it'll look like at the first meeting, but I figured I'd start now and see what feels correct about it.

I'd scheduled today all day to work on it, but it was really feeling like work and I wanted to play. I let myself play, then, and wrote this — I'll paste it below. There's a kind of joy inside when I write like this that I imagine Gertrude Lang felt when she played the sunset. <3

[Note: If you want a seat at the table, one hasn't solidified yet, but maybe you can help with that? https://dangerpoetsociety.com]

***

“Danger Poet” she whispers into the jet stream aimed at the moon,

Calling all Danger Poets,

Come out and play!

The old paradigm is dying,

Let’s fill the space until the babes take their place,

Bring snacks.

She twists some taffy letters into a thought form that takes off

And becomes a thought experiment unfolding upon

Twilight streaming through the dream,

A dream this must be, she looks at her fluffy tail and blinks

Rubbing eyes she hops over to the time piece and wonders

Am I late, or just about to meet Alice?

What would happen if I let go, I wonder — not the she in the dream, but me…

Wait, how…who…am I?

The wind whispers, “Danger Poet” —

You are a Danger Poet having a dream and you

Were about to meet the Resistance Rangers, and the Antagonists,

And have snacks while you all shout at the moon —

But you would rather wake up?

Oh, my skepticism strikes yet again.

Must I hold onto "sanity" so strongly that I don’t let the dream magic unfold in my own mind?

Only while I am asleep and distracted does the magic play out.

When the door opens, and I have access,

I can’t just play along with the dream realm because I don’t know I’m asleep and I get scared.

I am a child at an adult play, and I don’t understand and I get scared and ask questions and the play stops and becomes this sad little reality that doesn’t have better writers because we are all children and interrupting.

I am awake now,

In my shabby body,

Necessary upkeep undone,

Wrong oils used,

Wrong ingredients villainized,

Wrong tension, held.

I am here, with all the pain, listening to the rattle of the old house decaying right along with me.

What was the wind telling me?

Danger Poet.

Oh, yeah, I said I’d write a Danger Poet Anthology.

I feel like a letter magnet sitting in a drawer waiting for the rest of the words to come together, for me to take my place. It feels incorrect to stand alone. Some letters get to do that (where is an A and I when I need them?), but I’m like a W or something that alone doesn’t make a sound, just potentiality.

In this between state, between asleep and awake enough to remember there are wars still being fought in this reality and food spoils while people starve and people design chairs to be specifically uncomfortable with the result that no one stays at bars and cafes long enough to really bond anymore.

And now that I remember all that,

(Thanks, brain!),

I guess I’ll go make breakfast.