"I Ground My Eye Into His Fist"

The blogosphere is full of prompts. 

One of them, recently,

invited posts upon the theme

of a "small victory."

To talk of our own victories

can seem immodesty,

so several bloggers chose some other

theme entirely,

and others, trained by years of false

"spirituality,"

tried to present some small defeat

as their "small victory."

In skewering a TV show

with witty parody,

Jean Kerr once had a character

claim such a victory:

"I ground my eye into his fist!

I made him trample me!

I woke up in a hospital!

That was my victory!"

"I was told it's not 'feminine'

to act as logically

and spare myself as many tears

as I do," one tells me,

"so, never mind the evidence

of my anatomy,

I'm not a woman! I accept it!

That's my victory."

"Once more I let a pushy pest

blame per last push on me

and only on the Internet

mentioned a boundary

the pushy pest will not accept

with cordiality,"

another post admits defeat

and calls it victory.

An e-friend writes and writes and writes.

I read selectively

despite the evidence that person

isn't reading me.

Most people say more than they hear.

So life will ever be.

All writers must just persevere,

portray the world we see.

"Before they write their daily posts,

do my e-friends read me?"

is not the question bloggers ask

if they seek sanity.

To write by conversation's rules

of common courtesy

is an approach blog readers find

outrageous vanity;

so when we overcome the urge

to ask what people see

in what we wrote the other day,

is this a victory?

I say a blessing from the Lord 

or personal victory

does not need turning inside out

to show its quality.

Yes, death must conquer all disease!

Is death then victory?

And those grapes growing out of reach?

They sour indeed may be!

I say, at least: I beat the urge

to inactivity

by waking, brushing teeth, maintaining

this blog faithfully;

it's tedious to write about

such tiny victory,

but better than to claim defeat

with equanimity

as if that always was the goal.

(Nobody's fooled, y'see.)

"I failed, but over discontent

I claim the victory"?

If this poem's read as perfect rhyme

it's doggerel, I agree.

If read as "modern" half-rhymes, is it

too close, parody?

"Perfectionism, get thee hence!"

Are half-rhymes victory?

I'd rather press toward the mark

of rationality.

This poem's here to mean. Its content

is the way it be.

Like the rhymes or not, d'you get the point?

Then count that victory.