The Further Adventures Of

Dear Fellow Travelers,

I feel like a drowning man who finally succumbs to the weight of all the life preservers thrown to him. I still imagine myself as one amongst many in an overcrowded lifeboat. Meaning: we're all in this together and therefore are "rescued" by sheer dint of being rescuable.

My teacher Bawa once started a Sunday morning discourse by saying he had been up all night praying to God for his students. When God finally "spoke," it was to say 'He' could do nothing more than what has been done; give nothing more than what has been given. This was Bawa's way of affirming the complete, utter sufficiency of Creation to be the salvation it is intended to be. Besides, for Bawa, the best and highest mercy was wisdom whose source was ourselves. This is a fairly standard message in the America that produced Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman--and which attracted Vivekenanda and D.T. Suzuki to its shores. Yet we keep stubbing our toes in the search for external oracles--or confirmations other than ourselves. I remember hearing a meditation instructor exhort his students to each become a "majority of one"--whether spelled with a small or capital 'o' doesn't matter.

I woke up yesterday morning feeling that my 72 years had been plenty of time to find salvation and wondering why my melancholy persisted. Then I remembered that the first Superman comic had been published in 1938, which would make the superhero roughly 110 Earth-years old, assuming he was about 30 when he moved to Metropolis. Now, granting that aging is done more slowly in Krypton-born bodies, Superman would still have reached a time in his life where he would be looking for heirs. And then I thought of Superman in virtual-reality America where everyday kids can wage genocide in the comfort of their living rooms and make combatting evil a simple matter of disciplined eye-hand coordination. In this world, a real-world Man of Steel is vestigial. Needless to say, I wanted to record my thoughts about Joe Siegel's masterstroke of imagination. Feel free to add your own.

Love,

David

THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF

                   for the Metropolites

1

Suspect is Caucasian male,

5'10", blue eyes, dark hair;

clean-shaven, with thick horn-rimmed glasses;

usually wears wash-and-wear sports jacket

with white dress shirt unbuttoned at top

and loosened striped tie

giving glimpses of blue body stocking.

Last seen in disheveled immobility,

crying in the alleyway

between an Acme check-cashing joint

and the boarded-up Sisters of Mercy abortion clinic.

Suspect, who goes under the alias of Bartleby,

was removed to present spot

after forcible ejection from

the former premises of the Daily Planet

directly across the street.

2

A closetful of red capes

dry-cleaned by the same Chinese laundry

he's been using since he moved to Metropolis.

A closetful of immaculate blue costumes

with red-and-yellow S-letter shields sewn on them.

This is the third anniversary

in which the vestments

have hung unused

sheathed in glistening plastic.

Clark yearns for the days when heroism

needed to unfurl its wings on a daily basis.

Back then the credulous world believed

the costume worn to fight evil

was tattooed to his flesh

or was a latent body part like claws

that appeared with each exercise of power.

Even Lois felt faint when she first saw

battle stains and signs of struggle so stubborn

no bleach or stone could remove them.

Twice a year she helped Clark burn ruined vestments

then accompanied him on visits

to a seamstress code-named "Betsy Ross"

for replacement attire

in the presumably never-ending fight for freedom.

3

No one seems to care or notice

that the Metropolis crime rate is soaring

now that there are no phone booths

where Clark Kent can change to Superman.

"I can use my strength to leap tall buildings,"

he complains to Lois Lane,

"but I am not permitted to shrink my atoms

so that I can fit into a cell phone."

Lois looks with pity at her husband.

"It's a shame," she laments,

"that you can't worm your way into cyberspace.

That's where the worst evil is nowadays."

4

Clark has a drinking problem.

He is not used to needing others

to fix things. Nor are the others.

As problems pile up

Clark gives power to the bottle

he once gave to himself.

5

Lois Lane takes a well-paying job

as a PR flak for a fracking campaign.

She tells Clark it is temporary

but wishes he, too, would heed,

if not bow to, the times.

As an unemployed reporter

Clark has lost his leading excuse

to be at the city's hottest crime scenes.

The only people who might need

his famous nose for news

are the surveillance hacks

at the CIA, FBI and NSA.

But how, he asks,

repressing a desire to pound his fist

on a Donald Deskey dinner table he bought for Lois,

can he work for agencies

run by Lex Luther?

“We all know that the sole purpose

now of the United States

is to stoke the wars

needed for money-laundering,”

Clark says, heaving a sigh

that registers a 6.2 on the Richter Scale.

6

Clark’s former boss Perry White calls

to remind him that his unemployment insurance

runs out in another week.

Has it been that long

since I had a job, he asks himself.

Christie's and Sotheby's have offered

to hold special sales of Superman's belongings.

“No matter what happens,

the Man of Steel’s wardrobe will have value as art,”

an auctioneer assures Lois.

"Why the capes alone will bring more

than the Hope diamond."

7

Maybe, Clark thinks, it is time

to ply his skills on Mars. "I can't live

without this ninja nonsense,"

he confesses to Lois.

"Maybe, just maybe.

there are enough signs

of a life worth defending

left on the Red Planet

to make relocation

worthwhile."

--David Federman, Ardmore, March 14-15, 2014