I admit I’m not a poetry lover. I don’t even like poetry. I like it better when it rhymes, like the Ancient Mariner. Sometimes I read the poetry in The New Yorker, and inevitably sneer or mutter “Jesus Christ.” I used to think it was a failure on my part, but now I’m comfortable with all of my biases.

I once had a job that involved stupid magazines with stupid ads for suckers, like devices to enlarge your breasts overnight. One of the ads was for a poetry contest, that was clearly a scam. It was something like “YOU TOO COULD BE A POET! ENTER THIS CONTEST AND WIN $10,000!”

I showed it to my young teenager and we decided to send in a poem to find out what the scam was. It was back in 1990, but I still remember laughing as we took turns composing it. Max was reading Stephen King at the time, who was a master of the idiotic mixed metaphor, and you can see the Stephen King influence throughout.

Sure enough, our poem won an Honorable Mention! and we could see it published in a nice anthology for only $49.95! We decided to pass. *If you want to try this too, go here.

Keeping in mind my disappreciation for poetry, I was excited to discover a poem by my husband’s ex-wife, my bête noire and the Anti-me. While I try to follow her monthly column in her community newspaper, somehow the poem escaped my attention until now. “Escaped my attention” is the kind of thing she would write, so I apologize, but she would have prefaced it with “hitherto.”

I won’t pretend to “get” this poem; You don’t need to get it to enjoy it, right? But once I figured out its subject, I was inspired to write my own elegy:

Ode To The Tennessee 3

What fresh hell is this! Voting
To kick them out for
Protesting

Even the fat white lady knew how
Wrong
This was. Plus

The 2 young black guys
Are so hot!
Especially the Brother with
The earring and long hair

I even followed
Him
On Instagram.

I shared it with my friend M, a published novelist and hardcore fan of the Ex’s work, and he countered with this:

Tennessee 3 braving
and behaving
No
The guy with the Afro is the hotter of the 2

Whew! I’d hate to have to pick the winner here, but I would love to pick the winner of your entries! So, (YOU TOO COULD BE A POET!) please submit a poem about the Tennessee Three and the winner will get a nice certificate! If anyone out there is an artist, you can help design it.

Don’t be shy! There are no losers, only winners!

When I’m feeling particularly miserable and powerless, I check to see if the Ex-Wife has written a new column in her neighborhood paper.  It never makes me feel better, but I am often rewarded by my favorite tropes, like references to Shakespeare or her bikinis and mini-skirts of yore.

“Of yore” is the type of expression that makes her writing such a joy. Reading the latest offering, a Proustian recollection of her childhood summers, I wonder why I can’t write like this. I mean, I had an Ice Cream truck, too. I went to summer camp, just like she did. But in my memories, I just bought the ice cream and ate it. At camp, it felt like I was being tortured by mean strangers and bees. It was a nightmare.

Anyway, take a look for yourself.

No bikini or mini-skirt but at least we get crop tops and “peddel pushers.”

Try thinking about your childhood for a minute, just as a mental exercise. Was it a diaphanous reverie filled with running and laughing and blue ribbons? Maybe that’s why I hate her.

My childhood was like a black and white horror movie. I don’t enjoy dredging up memories. One memory I do like is making snail hospitals. I loved putting the snails on cotton balls, their hospital beds, in a ward made from one of my mom’s shoe-boxes. They never got better, because they weren’t sick until I started fucking with them.

The snails probably had better childhoods than mine, and you know what? I’ll bet they were better writers than the Ex.

The other day, I dutifully checked in on the Ex Wife’s literary efforts, not just because I’m nuts but because they are so breathtakingly stupid. I always come away feeling both gratified and enraged.

I can’t help it! She writes a monthly column for her community paper. If it wasn’t there, I wouldn’t need to read it. But it is there. Like Mount Everest.

So the column this month is about packing up when a fire forces you to evacuate. You don’t have much time and there is limited room in the car.

What stuff would you take if you only had a small suitcase?

The stuff she packed was nothing special: “the important papers, and the photos, my doll, the few pieces of good jewelry, family videos.”

I guess the doll is a little suspect and who still says “good jewelry” but let’s move on.

Safely back at home, she removes the precious things she had stuffed into a washer and dryer, and here’s where the fun begins.

My old volumes of Shakespeare, heavy and dark with wisdom,

A collection of glittered Advent calendars holding all the magic of the season,

The Happy Birthday banner handmade by my father,

A pink sequin dress, old family bible, my Beatle cards.

One shabby, brown flannel shirt, well worn and shared by everyone in the family.

Miranda’s report on Ground Squirrels, complete with illustrations.

An Anniversary card from a man who loves me still.

A popsicle stick-framed picture of a guru, the Batman book, Riley’s small handprint,

The copy of, “An Actor Prepares,” that Cindy gave me all those years ago,

A Smashing Pumpkins tee shirt, a stuffed pink pig named Peddly,

Mike’s old surf jacket.

And a faded needlepoint from my mother, reading,

“Dear House, You Are Really Very Small, Just Big Enough For Love, That’s All.”

Jesus Christ. I can’t even.

How does a person get to be so enchanted with their own self?

I believe this is the key to my fascination. It is unfathomable. And so awful.

I asked my sister what she’d pack if she was in a hurry to evacuate. Her answers were reassuringly normal. Photographs and family mementos.

My husband’s answer was thrillingly concise: Instead of a suitcase, he’s take a guitar case, and a guitar. I could not love him more for this.

Me, I’d take the photos and the things I sleep with. I’d throw all my jewelry into a pillowcase, and if there was time, I’d take my hard drive.

I couldn’t manage to be poetic and nostalgic about my itemized stuff.  And believe me, I tried, on the phone with my sister. I’m just not enough of an idiot, say what you will about me.

Now! What stuff would you take, and for extra points, try to emulate the Ex’s lovingly descriptive tone.

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Twenty years on, I am still rattled by my husband’s fucking ex. Not only has she opened a tiki-themed restaurant too close to my neighborhood,  she has recently written the following:

“There was a time in my youth, those long gone halcyon days, when it seemed I spent a large part of my life in front of a camera. In the pursuit of an acting career it was standard operating procedure to continuously update and change the 8-by-10s that were the calling cards of all of us who tramped the mean streets of Los Angeles in constant and often futile rounds of meetings in the offices of agents, photographers, producers, directors and various unsavory characters.

“Perhaps in retrospect it is the smiling [photos] that fare the best, as I was innately happy, clear of eyes and had good teeth. For my fiftieth birthday and retired at that point, I pulled out all the old headshots and plastered them over a large wall at my parent’s house, creating a sort of gallery. They made a remarkable display and told a story of my own evolution, not to mention hairdos. The one topless shot, though artistically done and revealing but a modest bosom, shocked my brother. Frankly, I was rather proud to shock anyone.”

There was one thing that each photo had in common, one through-line, one essence captured. It was youth, my youth. And youth is hope. There it is, around the curve of my smiling lips, in the gleam of my eye, in the open expression.”

Jesus. Christ.

I brought up the subject of her uniquely annoying existence with my husband, who flipped out. Why can’t I be normal, he wants to know. It’s easy for him to talk about normal: My ex, though a cunt, stays quietly in his corner and doesn’t open restaurants or write about his modest bosom.

Some things are just awful and they stay awful. Some things fall away in the stark awareness of what really matters.  I am waiting for the ex-wife to move from the first category into the second.

Tonight, I heard my son remark about Facebook: “I find my self wondering, why are you my friend here when I fucking hate you?”

So true. I went to look at my Facebook friends and I hate at least 5 of them. There are others who are complete strangers but I can assume that I’d probably hate 80% of them if I knew who they were.

It suddenly occurred to me that I might find my husband’s ex on Facebook, but no such luck. I only found her teenage son, who is throwing a gang sign in his profile photo and has 657 friends. YAY!

How many of your Facebook friends do you hate? And which nemesis has disappointed you by not being there?