GODOT (Reconsidered)

TRANSCEND MEMBERS, POETRY FORMAT, 25 Mar 2019

Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service

22 Mar 2019 – This poem was first written on June 6, 2013, revised many times thru the years into 2019.  It is, of course, a “play” on words from “Waiting for Godot,” the imaginative 1953 play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters – Vladimir and Estragon – wait for Godot.  The original play emerged amidst the “beat generation,” in which the absurdities of the time, the sheer contradictions, were captured in ironies, cynicism, despair, and ambivalence. 

I need express my feelings about current times.  Finding in them, parallel, the same absurdities; but the risks, dangers, threats, greater! Does it ever change?

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What are you doing?
I am waiting for Godot.
Who is Godot?
I don’t know.
Why are you waiting for Godot?
He asked me to wait.
What does he want?
I don’t know?
When is he coming?
I don’t know?
How will you recognize him?
I don’t know?
How long will you wait?
I don’t know?
What if he doesn’t come?
He always comes!
How do you know, he will come?
He sent me an “Ace of Spades!”
What does that mean?
It means he knows!
I don’t understand!
Godot knows.
May I stay with you?
I will leave now.
I will leave too!
Goodbye!
Stay!
What if Godot comes?

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Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D., a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, is a past president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, Emeritus Professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii’s Manoa Campus in Honolulu, Hawaii, and past director of the World Health Organization Psychiatric Research Center in Honolulu.  He is known internationally as a pioneer figure in the study of culture and psychopathology who challenged the ethnocentrism and racial biases of many assumptions, theories, and practices in psychology and psychiatry. In more recent years, he has been writing and lecturing on peace and social justice. He has published 21 books and more than 300 articles, tech reports, and popular commentaries. His TMS articles may be accessed HERE and he can be reached at marsella@hawaii.edu.

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 25 Mar 2019.

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