Sestina: Jerry Springer as Bulfinch

Some say it's the worst show on television, the talk show
   hosted by Jerry Springer.
Before television we had books, and the announcer might have
   said, "Here's Thomas Bulfinch!"
And comes on stage the author-lecturer, a respected American
   nineteenth-century learned man
Who catalogued the myths and legends of several civilizations
   of gods and women,
Heroes and nymphs, sprites, changelings and jokers,
   bad boys and good boys, Bulfinch can tell;
He'd gather explanations of creation, good and evil, great nobility
   and virtue, and of great pain.

Tolstoy put it a bit differently when he said all humans,
   beset by family or not, suffer pain.
But how to deal with it? Most try to hide. Others call TV shows:
   "I'm gonna call Springer!"
Eager for the nanoseconds of fame, and this may be the highlight
   of their life, they'll tell
Any and every thing, changing only a few words. Leave the
   gentleness to Harvard's Bulfinch -
They are carrying their grudges to the vast wasteland,
   (no other recourse for these women)
Demanding solutions, even if by combat on stage,
   shoving matches, "man-to-man."

Gender, once neatly cleaved into two, has new rules:
   no rules - anything, any kind of man,
"Pre-op," "post-op," no operation wanted or needed,
   "thank you, no physical pain."
Women who want to be men parade their feelings,
   as do men who want to be women.
There's enough confessions for three segments every hour,
   five days a week, on Springer.
And you might think there'd be nothing here suitable
   for our modern Bulfinch,
But there is. Jerry just frames the Same Old Stories
   in a different format. He'll tell,

As Bulfinch would, the general circumstances of the story;
   then the guests will tell
Their version, give the details, because there are more than
   seven sins. Ah! Modern man,
And nothing new: delusional, deluded, changeable and fickle,
   stories right out of Bulfinch.
Men who quarreled, loved, quarreled, settled scores,
   quarreled, who raged in unsettled pain
Until fatigued…too tired to be uplifting. It's hard to be noble
   looking at Jerry Springer.
And that was just the men. It's no different for the women -

Our list of inspirations: Hippolyta, Ariadne, Psyche,
   and Baucis, too, noble women;
Well, Medea and Scylla, too. In America,
   it's of Adam, Eve, Lilith, and snakes we first tell.
We are their children, gnashing our pitiful stories to a leering
   audience and Jerry Springer,
Who listens politely, wanting us to get to the point -
   he is inherently a nice man.
Those on stage scream, kick, claw, try to shove past the
   burly bodyguards, claw their pain
Into the eyes of the audience (such scenes never imagined
   by the level-headed Bulfinch).

A set of stories came down via stones, cave paintings, tablets,
   scrolls, and statues, to Bulfinch.
He is kind, this dreamer: he attributes every virtue,
   including sense and beauty, to his women.
He would spare them and us embarrassment, intimacies;
   Jerry would have them exhibit their pain.
"It's the circus, with stage and lights, a mob of friends;
   you're here now, so sit down and tell
Your story. Tell us everything allowable,"
   he cajoles the reluctant, very uneasy man
Who tears up, stammers out his predicament -
   the crowd is screaming - to kindly Mr. Springer.

Thomas Bulfinch, recorder of legends, has morphed into
   television's chief host, Jerry Springer.
Now we have a daily page-turner, but instead of god and
   goddess, we have women, or a man.
Pain makes great television, doesn't it? Tom and Jerry know,
   and it's their job to tell.

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