The Poetry of Wrestling - Bukowski

Well it's been a long week kids. THE MARK is in the hospital, and as he recovers from surgery I thought I'd give him a few blog posts to read. I wound up on a poetry website this morning, and as I was scrolling through some of my favorites, and I happened upon the Bukowski archive. When I reread "The Genius of the Crowd" I was absolutely floored by how much I saw wrestling in this:

there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average

but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect

like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock

their finest art

There are many layers I could apply this to, but for now, I'll stick to the crowds. I apply this not to the wrestling crowds themselves, though some might be implicated, but more to those who despise wrestling. There is a basic public health concept that suggests that it may not be in a society's best interest to eliminate all vices. The idea is that if you take away too many unhealthy behaviors, mental health on the whole will suffer to a point that society will destabilize (see Communist Russia circa, um, that part at the end when they banned vodka and that succeeded where all the diplomacy in the world had failed) and ultimately implode. That being said, I hate when people mock low culture. Wrestling makes no promises, no pretensions. It is pure entertainment in real time. It is exhibitionist performing for voyeurs. It is an athletic event that responds to the viewers in real time, and lives for viewer response. This is not the stuff tearing our society apart, this is the stuff holding us together. Our lowest impulses, our highest hopes, our secret personal archetypes can all be found in the archives of wrestling. Those who dismiss, protest or denigrate do so at their own peril. This stuff is in all of us. It is our genius.