I wish you didn't know how much
I love you. There's no denial I could use
to get around it now. It's not as if I don't
trust you, I cannot help it now. I do.
I'd sacrifice myself to anything
you would allow, and I can't help think
and feel that means you've got me
at a disadvantage, well. There's no one
I would rather have me at one of those.
But I kind of wish you didn't know.
It's more fun if it's a surprise how much
I would destroy myself, just to make
you throw a pose.
I am owed this view. Those few
rough and jagged peaks, small
in the background, stage left. This
circular pool of reflected sky, dirtied
in water and somehow made iron-red murk
and algae-green livid without brown, somehow
remaining a lake (with one mountain's peak
on tip-toe! Sticking its head in on a hot day).
A hot day so high up there's snow below us
now. As if to incomplete the scene's stark
and spare austerity: a scrubby stubble
of random plants at this height, struggling
to look respectable despite the disreputable
aspect. Nothing this high could thrive
but in this moment, I do. And you.
I am owed this view, having taken
all the long tramp and toil to earn
it. And you, for dragooning me up
to this death-hike, are perhaps
owed something too.
Time flows up.
Up our spines, towards
the clouds, bleeding out
into space to the stars,
steam escaping our mouths
as the earth radiates
all this time. It collects
building up in the wastes
of space, which we all
keep in mind.
I’d be a little leery of my progress
(if any) if I found myself 'justifying things'
that actually could use any. Those are things
I’ve been much more comfortable sticking
crowbars into, cracking the plates open
and pee peeing on the innards. Then bash
liberally about in there with the crowbar.
If I stand back and when I’m done, the thing
slap-clicks shut again, sprung up humming
and whirring in key-perfect pitch to life,
in complete working order and fighting trim,
well,
as my big brother’s buddy
Rob used to say, “So what
that let you know?”
It seems quite possibly, the thing was well
beyond justification in the first place. Since
tested, proved, a bunch of wrenches dumped
into the works and they all worked back out,
the mechanism found (essentially) sound,
(at least, major flaws of a venture all known,
understood and agreed acceptably risky by both
most concerned). Discovered to be immune
to investigative techniques of the rudest most
hard-eyed and mercifully ruthless kind.
In other words by no justification possible,
whatsoever required. Or employed. Why would I,
and why would anyone?
It must be people don’t know or understand what
they want, with this justification business. The only
justification process that counts worth a damn
in my eyes is the one employed in the scientific
method. You get a big idea. You sketch out (predict)
outcomes, and then you make the most sincere attempt
to destroy the thing every way conceivable or possible,
even.
You attempt falsification. In dread earnest and with
perfectly pitiless precision and rigor, with even undue
diligence, whatever you can think of that even maybe
it can’t take - which is no bar to courtesy, of course.
It’s the idea you’re interested in beating to hell, not
the bright idear. Idea-er. Idea woman, or idea man,
as you prefer.
That’s how you smack a rocket into Mars. It’s how
you translate the entire human genome into Esperanto,
it’s how you fall in love and how you fall out of it,
and break up in the atmosphere into burning shards
of what used to be two souls made flesh, now separating
in flaming plumes, angling down to where their craters
await them.
Whether people realize it or not, that’s what we’re doing
down here. It works. Justification is a shill job, trying
to persuade somebody or oneself plus others to an idea
they can already see the problem with, instead of banging
in at it with every wrench and spanner in reach that could
possibly fit, not to fix but wreck the proposition.
What stands that stands forth. The justifiers, though,
who stand and stall, trying to persuade all concerned
to be less concerned about this, and more concerned
in a course they none of them have even tried to destroy
first -
not in earnest!
- are quite mad.
Dear scumbag,
It's as if you ignored or never got
my call, my letter, or my text telling
you I love scumbags, keep it coming
please keep butting in, barging, reaching
out into my moments and making
a welcome scumbag nuisance of yourself
with your risible and despicable bullshit.
Either that
or you didn't think I meant it?
Oh well. I hope this finds you well,
either way okay. I recognize it's your call
after all's said and done whether to drift
or carry on, and I honor it, scumbag.
Yours all the way out here,
Jerkstick
I want to say gratitude to you.
Gratitude.
For our whole reaching tentative
to stretching-out luxuriant association
of mutual bumpy-surprise joyride, overall
- which from my side, it has been - I just want
to say gratitude
to you. Gratitude.
Surprise seems unexpected past a point
you know some person so well it has stopped
occurring to you that moments in play
and things at stake could wrong-way turn
'til you both fly off down unknown roads
of not wanting to know this person any more
(let alone better) than you were already forced
to, under false pretexts or pretense. You, they
or the universe (always in on it) convinced you
they were a dead-ringer for your idea of them.
Sold you that THAT was who they truly duly were,
bank on it!
Well, you did but
sometimes someone steals the whole bank
out from under your account - and then
what's in your wallet? A fat wad of dog-eared
I.U.O.'s written by someone who verifiably
never existed: your impression
of who they really were.
In the rare case you've gone so far
down so good and bad a stretch of ground
with someone who gives you always to know
who they are, so it's always someone unquestionable,
so it never any longer occurs to you, even
- that some mistake could be made, or was. That's rare!
But surprise in such case is even rarer, somehow,
or ought to be you would think. How can reliable
surprise? All reliable no predictable in the mix?
What hocus pocus focus pull misdirection trick
is this? Surprise ought to be long since dissolved
in the gravy of this savory stew, a definite note
in the flavor profile - can't surprise you then.
You'd be surprised at its absence! Yet surprise
is never far from you, though. Let alone continual
low-level wonder and delight at someone
who reliably, consistently never is
and never was my idea of you. Just
a delight and a surprise that defeats it
in single combat every time that dim
doppelganger steps onto the same
stage, or in the same ring
with you.
What shocks me is how responsible you are.
You are responsible for how I feel about you,
and even more responsible for how childish
and avoidant that sounds. You're responsible
for my opinion of you, always so high, proves
consistently by degrees low. You're responsible
for things about yourself that you can't control,
things about yourself that can't possibly be
things about yourself, but that no doubt
belong as features and attributes to my
idea of you, just hanging around on skulk mode,
stoopin' on the down low waiting for the foregone
-conclusive showdown where you show up and
They're shown up,
As you stand forth real, like I knew you were
just...not that way
which is why I want to say gratitude
to you. I say
gratitude.
I know it's a bit cryptic,
unconventional use, but
wouldn't you be surprised
if it wasn't?
I have this to give you: my whole
heart, plus associated parts, used,
of worth indeterminate, true - but
You know what? I don't think these
other scumbags (I don't judge - just
look!) will have anything new.
I could very easily be
not what you think of me.
I have a fantastic imagination
for strategems, lies, all kinds of fun.
Long cons and frauds. Why, everyone
I tell them to agrees - that one, they'd
have fallen for, cold. Eventually,
It dawns on me: hey. How do we know
I'm not deep in the grip of self-deceit,
with its iron and oh so invisible hold?
Perhaps this shining field of wheat
is but so much chaff, so much fool's gold?
What if the one who you love so pure
is at best an alloy, a mixed metaphor?
Or only a simulacrum coined
and conjured from all the best parts
I could think of me? How would we suss
and spot flaw from join? How do we know
you're impartial enough, detached enough
to be not taken in, your trust purloined?
An act like that could be easy to do.
How can we really feel safe within
such warp and weft, so cunningly
-wrought from morning dew and fresh
mown grass? Even I don't know who
I'm kidding or how, I've become in this
moment such a prize ass. Oh god baby
please please say it's not so! It's almost
too much for me
to allow
but I suppose in a case like this,
pending some hard clue, we'll just
have to let it go. A free pass
for me. An enduring task
of scrutiny's toil
for you.
When I was young
I don't think I knew
how happy I was
- and I was right.
I wasn't. It's just
the collapsible lens
of time picks up
and magnifies
every idiot gleam
of fun and love
that could never
prove false. I loved
those, then, and I love
them still. Of course
I do. Meanwhile each
equally idiot glare of panic
and trouble, confusion
I couldn't see how
would turn out, or how
to get through, is lost.
Proved false. Proved
no big deal, and gone
now as if they never
were.
But of course in the living,
each moment, they were.
They bloomed all around
and into the future, I guessed,
not seeing the end of each - making
me then really and truly miserable.
When people say "I wish I knew
then what I know now," I don't think
they mean how, really, to make things
turn out. I think they just mean knowing
which things somehow all really would.
Turn out. So then if they only knew,
they could fully enjoy the half
of their idiocy that they'll cherish
and keep - the proven big deal - not
noticing or sweating so much
the half that fades unnoticed
at the time to vanished, making
the past seem sweet.
The amounts that we admire and are fond
and not commensurable. I doubt we share
a unit or a measurement between us, but
I sense the scales are full by the overspill
that does occur. Perhaps eureka moments
could provide a clue to hold! Let us each
drop - oh hey, no good. What's in there's
already pure as gold. Err err
Two vast and leglike trunks of stone
paused on a walk 'round their beautiful home.
The desert swept in, their whole body fell off.
Somebody put a plaque up, somebody wrote a poem
to scoff
- and between-eyeblinks, between breaths -
those legs walked off again.
They were chuckling low about death.
It was all quite musical. The lyrics,
if any, were lost in the lull.
it circled the world
at the height of our eyes
to pour down our hearts
from horizon-line spill
it could cross in a blink
from the edge of the earth
any distance like that.
To knock us for all
we were worth
out of doubt,
into will.
When did this job
devolve on me?
Now I do it all the time.
Seems to me this once
was yours. Once
you said, "Hey,
could you please-"
It's since been mine.
It seems as though
another of your dirty tricks
has played out sweet! At least
for you. For me, I guess
You've got me beat.
Well, I don't mind.
I get my own in slick
sure ways of all you do
unasked and unexpected,
True. Unnecessary, half
the time. Gratuitous, but
hoo, reliable as nudity in
certain kinds of horror films
or sex in porn. I'm sure
you knew. Oh,
I get mine. You're nuts
if you think just you do.
I've got the sweeter deal
by far, between us here!
Now, please let's not
fight over that. You say
you do, it's true
but you would, dear.
I'd like to improve my writing to where
it's better
enough
that people don't care
how I go on
that people don't mind so much
about whether I get somewhere,
just so's as we go
I do that style, that way
that authoreal voice,
I say. I say that peculiar
tilt and lilt and hang
and pang, even cognitive
dissonance clang
that they've come
up all the way from tolerance
to crave somehow, some way
they accept is my very
best
thang.
Or
best
so far as words
getting put go. Dang,
I bet though there might be
a couple few other things I could
try to best. Or better, at least
but I guess: write what
you know
is a good place to start
for success. So here I go:
Write what, you know? So:
What
what
what
what
what
what
oh
...
too literal again like always. See?
This is why I must work so damn
all on me.
Lead with real wants
likes loves as you go!
You'll attract/repel
who you want/don't want
to know.
This hapless sleazebag hypocrite
only washes his hands of anything
where the paydirt sticks. He just
flushes and soaps it off. If there's gold
in that muck he struggles and scrapes
and comes to grips into, it's a fool
he is, and won't see its glint. It's a shame
all through. What a waste of an act. With
his lack of character, he could have
any lady he wants to tell him fuck off.
Any job in the world, to cut him like loss.
Why he should have succeeded most
splendidly in a number of lines,
by now! But he says
at least he's free.
And it's true. No one pays
All his service is bad
all his product is hot
all his brand has as bad a name
as he's got, and it stays.
It's too late for him. It's too
late to miss
when you've got no shot,
just the driving and surging
resentment and
the indignant will
it would take to win,
if one had any sport. But
you don't my friend. And
he's not my friend. And
he's got no game. His is all
posterized. Photoshopped. On paper,
thin, unconvincingly pasted in
and framed.
No bill.
For the honest critique! But
I am sincere. And I hope you could
find all the way you seek, try
direction: door. Or
is that not enough?
I have all the more.
Brevity is the soul of pith. Oranges, too
are lousy with it - the pith, I mean to be brief
but if
by miniscule bits and wisps you pluck
you could brew and infuse a wit
imbued by such bitter and tricksy
fits (wit's a class of beer, I believe
with punchy snoot, some say it's
legit), But fuck, let me have a sip!
Bottoms down. Cheers up!
I'm sick of metatextual implications
you can't tease out without violence.
Just by application of human reason
and common sense, I am not dense
but things ought to come plain and
explain themselves if you look at them
the intense way I can, and I do, and
they don't. I'm
sick of it. My brother once said
"I can't stand films with subtleties."
Turns out you meant subtitles, bro
but you know? I have over the years
in my wisdom's growth (I think it's
my wisdom - no biopsy, though)
become less and less so inclined
to disagree.
I admire my effortless yet impossibly
belabored efforts in the prose line, and
I think we could possibly write a book
if you supply the good character. I have
a plot
but I'm afraid we can't, because united
in such acts of fervid and fecund creation
we would fall in love so fast we'd deny
we always were, and that
my friend
would spoil the fucking plot! Dead
giveaway city! How does one (or
in this case {hypothetical} two) write
(or cowrite) a goddamn book with
a riveting plot that just sums up
how beautifully flawless the story
wends while fucking it up the exact
same way for real, and get it to sell?
Notoriety, fame - let's concede - are
at least two cards in the pack we had
hopefully shuffled and cut, and dealt.
But a job like I just described, no matter
how tastefully-cooked couldn't beat
the smell
It's "fantastic, incredible, too much
so of both" - scream the jacket quotes
nope, no: nix. If we can't think up
a better plot than neither of us wants
to arc or twist, then I say the whole
damn deal has skipped out on us
- and we've only ourselves to kiss
goodbye. Better yet shake hands!
Deal's a deal, fair's fair, and nobody
understands. Why
I feel so sure
about us. It's a little peculiar,
but maybe only because I am.
You are comparatively sound,
sane, normal - sensical, wrung
in reason and with truth rung
like bells a few rungs up the ladder
from where I fell - but I emphasize,
only by comparison could I say
all that. Otherwise or not at all
wise, I'd admit (though I wouldn't
have to) the whole thing is odd.
And it isn't. That's what makes it
so odd. That I'd admit it when
it isn't. Anyway, I have to admit
it is, odd. That I feel so sure
I mean. About us.
But I do!
Weird.
I will keep you and I
very well safe
from harm.
By dint of whatever strength
I have to lift, whatever
burden we have to give,
with whatever heft
we could shift
at our best,
it will be no contest.
Just a small conquest
of some consequence,
to take in and take it
for all its blessed best,
plus the rest of what's left
to guess. If you call it
a guess.
I don't very well know
what you have in store,
but I've asked that you tell me
the truth this time.
And you said that you would.
So dilemma is mine, pluck a petal
and flip a coin: what are you going
to say, and do I believe you're lying?
I guess if you said you would tell
the truth,
like I guess if I even could ask that
of you,
then I must have believed
it was something that you
could do.
Okay. Probability is
we're fine.
I doubt that I'll ever remember now
the thing I was just
(or not) about
to do
or say, let's table that
anyhow - since you interrupt, well
what can I do for you? you
cheeky moo. Oh, bah
he oinked. As if
this Old MacDonald
had a shit to give
to fit your bovine ass.
No mind! What is it?
Whatever, forget it I bet
it too shall pass.
What was today? Thurs
day? Weds
day? I know
it's past midnight.
You know what I
mean. Fuck's sake.
So what was yesterday
then? Semantics or not,
chronology wise
you could cut
me a break
I never do anything "by mistake."
I do it on purpose first, and then
reap the whirlwind benefit
of error. Galore, if necessary!
I sure would abhor the waste
of a chance to learn I incurred
myself. Opportunity does not
knock like me when I knock
it upside the head! Eventually,
opportunity winds up dead.
How come ice sits in the glass
and don't melt despite
there's no drink even left
to make cold? It's like
a rebuke that I drank the drink
of which I took hold too fast,
chugged down and oh well.
It's past. I guess. I won't frown
or hiss or mount grievances
in this town so way out beyond
what I clearly contain to sustain
with my song, but I wouldn't mind
picking a brain or two to know
and find out the deal with this ice.
This glass, was it too big? Or too
small? Too surreal? Is it all just
a counterfeit sham?
Have I been too precise? Or am I
just the man.
How come is my song, yo. I didn't
even write it but it sang me
so rock
and so slow
and so sway
in these arms, and step
so measurably more into
whatever's left, which we've had
in store.
The avocado trees
have been staring at us
from all down the hill
with eyes of green. But
I bet if we pluck just
the low-hanging fruit
we'd harvest ourselves
in a crop serene, and creamy
and fat
- with only a touch
of rugose exterior, no
not much
and you'd crown yourself queen
of this Town Day parade, and fat
yourself full on such fruits
we've made.
homoerotic,
or so they say. Well,
I hope they would know. I'm
like, okay, "Opposites
attract!" and "Viva la diff
err aunce!" but you know,
just on say-so few to
nobody's like to take chance
on that that tack more than twice.
But once I tack and trim
my sails on a course that's
come from within without
my choice, it's
Nice. But which I
- yes, I! Oh yes
that me
could affirm it's true? You
bet! And hey,
it works! For me.
Quite enough to be certs,
and free. Did you spot
my tell to call that
bluff? But how?
'bout, you? I am
innerested! No personal
probes, please until we're
dead. Curiosity does not kid.
It kills. So,
stake me up this next hand,
for a couple of bills? What's
Erotic? But what
some deep, none-too
-inscrutable part (more
for some than others,
inscrutable) wants? If
that's it, I fold. Look deep
in your heart. I would let
You dicks and cunts! Win
the whole damn pot, besides
what I got in my pocket that's
left, rather than let you see what's in
this hand
I hold.
It's a straight up flush. Now
beat that, if you could have. You could,
but I bet you can't.
It's standard gold
My son is an alcoholic. That's why
I didn't give birth to them. (I didn't
presume my own son's gendersexual
identity choice or preference, just then.) (I
assume my son would be woke like
me, or that I would correct them
eventually to the point where one
of us would woke up. In break or bend,
I don't bet on me! Smart money's
on pup,) but yet, here's more
to the point:
I didn't give birth.
In some ways, you could call me
a traditionalist, and one of those ways
I'd say is this: giving birth is a mystery
ritual which unfolds in an agony and
bliss (?) whose rites I'd reserve elsewhere,
just now. Not that I'm saying a woman's
required, no! Or has to, oh hell no. Figure
it out! I'm just saying
Anyhow. I didn't give birth. And not
because alcoholics deserve not to live,
but this is my son
we're talking about, just here. Please.
Don't speak your turn, if you haven't
a clue from experience you
haven't been privy to
in this, your
life.
If you do
pop out (of
your turn, with your chime-in
piped-up clout) I might get so mad
I swear,
I could make you my wife. Like that. Right
here. Just how. You should hold my beer
while I kick your ass. Now.
Are we clear?
O, yeah. That's right.
Just pass.
I can see your end from here,
and it's passable,
but it's not quite right. From
a narrative arc standpoint, I'd say
you've got growing to do. Now:
flight, or fight, or fright, I think
we should try it your way. So
what do you say or want to do?
I can't talk you in, but I might
talk you out. Hey, my man -
let's call it a day and screw
in the night. There's no cause
here we should answer to.
If I had every superpower in
the comic book, I would transform
into a no wait teleport
myself to
actually, no. I would make
myself the best damn sandwich
ever made. And I do not mean
I would transform into a sandwich.
No, I would make one. No, no, now
yeah I know
this may not be
technically canonically
anyone's superpower! But I bet
with all that, it could yet be mine
though. With Wolverine claws
and smell, and Mr. Fantastic's
way around a kitchen, plus heat vision,
superspeed, and whatever the hell
else I need no great amount of ingenuity
to turn all this weird might
to my goal
when I know what I like my sandwich
like, right?
Right.
Don't poem hungry. Is the lesson, but
is there a moral?
Not quite. Comics, as much as they lap
corny virtue tropes and pay lip service
to heroism, are essentially a nihilist
genre, and morals
are non grata to super-
persona, especially these days. So
we're out of fucking cheese
well, damn. If I was Superman
or even Shazam!,
I bet we would not be.
Hey, since you know
if I was them
I would not be.
And neither would they.
You'd hardly expect
us to make it to nonfiction
dressed up like that!
In circus suits, with large
napkins draped from our necks? People
burying noses in those
panel pow word balloon
grid stories and shows
rarely do get in such cahoots
as I do. But who knows?
The Justice League - never
mind. That story stands
closed. They've been true
enough to me. Let alone
the Avengers.
Have we passed the eve
yet of destruction, yo? Where
strangers turn senders? And who's
in your knot? Your favoritemost
superest hero you got? Yes, "heroine"
is implied, I bet
mine beats yours. But then
mine's got shazam and vision
and colossus in the palm
of a hand. Superdoers, pfft! What's
your favorite sandwich
do for you?
How does your found good
row, row, row your oars,
oars oars? Anyho,
you know.
Let's unscrew and
deconstruct, or for once:
the opposite. Let's
screw
and
construct this shit.
You know this
and shit are an anagram?
Perhaps
that isn't the word, but
you bet I can. Or I bet
you can. I'm just try
to make talk. Work
with me, my dear. Or
for once, against! But
I thought
it would work, as
coincidence, but
am I not somehow clear? Yeah
I thought it would work.
If we bent our guess so.
So, what do you say? Hold
your beer? Ok. Let's
balk.
Or let's go
it was all so near once,
okay but I've lost the plot.
What a stunning array
we stunt.
Huh. Works for some.
Not for us apparently - what?
Oh, you just got
your coat!
And cape
and boots on, well
I'm not surprised. Then
Let's just
go conduct some hell
oh, heaven? Wherever
is fine. So long as your hair
keeps that smell
divine.
We planted
replanted really
our orange tree out back
and watched it try to thrive
for two years, season follows
season. It had been going near
grown already when we got it
- a further two years prior, that's
young adult in orange time - just
fresh post adolescent. Dug a
several shovel's worth of dirt
right where we stuck it in.
We pushed all the dirt left
back around to make a
pitcher's mound effect.
Happy Arbor Day, Charlie
Brown (you said.) That (I
said) has the taste of a scraped
barrel, but we couldn't stop
smiling that day.
We watered it of course, or God did.
It did thrive, after its fashion,
but its oranges.
did not look like oranges.
They looked and smelled
and had the textured feel
of our dreams. Yours and mine
why we moved here, and
how we keep waking up from them
every morning. It's like that tree
is the only way they come true.
Well the juice is sure funny. Or
terrifying actually sometimes - strange
to taste fresh squeezed punch-in-the
-mouth sweet and bright and alive
orange juice, yet
it's full of panic and gripping nightmare.
I wish
some of our dreams did not come true
this way, but
most of them taste beautiful
and your skin shines
and your eyes are bright
and your hair is glossy
and tonight,
we'll make oranges
Self-revenge
is a dish lived well,
best served out in the dark
and cold of a spell you've cast
a lot for. Hell, you have drawn
the short straw.
Big surprise! Do tell.
It's the longest and only straw
in the hand you offered yourself
and picked yourself to fall
where you land. You fell to earth
here. And now. You took up this stand,
and you won't care how.
For whatever comes next, you have
all you have left, and this one vow
will be spent and discharged, exhausted
bereft and bent.
For what you have done, unrepentantly.
You will make you pay to the nth degree,
and it won't be enough 'til you stare
at the wall. Watching the blood run cold
and stall.
Accident? Dog bite? Mesothelioma?
Some bull's hit you can't pronounce, upon
or otherwise? We have sued karma and won.
We take on all cases you can't make heads
or tails of. We'll figure it out when you can't,
and if there's money in it, we won't take dime one
of yours until it's all ours. Somewhere out there,
bold and hot in indignant memory or recoverable
via hypnotic release of suppression, something
happened to you.
We want that. That's our job. Trust us this far:
Somewhere out there the money involved
and implicated by your loss is sitting
in somebody's bank account waiting for us
to slap your name across it and take our cut.
That's fair - the business we're in. We stand
ready to make it boom
for you.
Maxon, Cline and McFitzheltz have made a name
in the storied business of taking on the big guy
for the little guy and making him suck
the little guy's dick. Watch the teeth, dude
- sounds like a lawsuit. We take on all cases,
women too. Sounds like a lawsuit to you?
We think so,
but.
Maybe you prefer to bitch out like a punk
and take it on the chin from the whole wide
world your whole life. So far, you have
- haven't you? Ever make the other guy(s),
gal(s), guys and gals or whoever else it was
PAY?
Well how about the rest of your life? Are
you gonna?
Come see us. Call first. Set up an appointment.
You will find we do not set up disappointments
- and your first and every meetup with us is free.
Not dime one of yours shall we pocket,
'til the windfall comes to cover us
all in our money.
Yours and ours. You, I expect
want yours.
Are people
aware that living their lives
may be a turn-off
to a repulsive segment of the populace?
And that if they do,
if they don’t watch it
and shape up, the consequence
may well be: a reduction
in unwanted
attention
from repulsive people?
See, I really don't think
I don't really think
some of the people involved
in this equation have
considered this,
or
If they did, if they
had - they probably wouldn't
have mentioned it. It's
a bad goals-fit, and
a bad sales pitch, but
- it's kind of legit
for who's into it.
I think it's about level-setting. Fr'
instance. You've got your self-worth.
How much worth could a self-worth
worth
if a self-worth could worth
worth?
Zero, right? Bupkis! Correct!
Or at most, one - but no more
than one surely. This, folks,
really is binary - and whether
you assign it value zero or one
says only a little about you,
and nothing at all about how
integers work. How can self
Be worth to self? The only worth
it has or could, conceivably, have
is one.
One (1) self.
Convenient package!
Go with one! Forget zero
- nobody needs one of those.
Nobody's ever had one
of those. If they had, they'd
have had zero of those,
exactly.
But - you've already got
one. And
you don't need
(however much you
might need another's self,
you don't need) another one
of self. You have all the one
you'll ever need already!
Go for two, if so - three
if adventurous or some-say
perverted, but as far as the one
you are, really, that's all the one
you need to be or could ever
amount to. However you work it,
(which is all to the good or
could be, depending)
it's still you. One unit. Recommended
service size: 1.
So serve, why don't you.
Be of some use. Put you.
Do something, whatever
- might as well! Could be
fun? We're stuck here
'til one of us dies, mate.
Get busy living or get
lazy lying.
Sure, that amounts
to something, but what it doesn't
amount to is self. What you can do
with your can-do 'tude
and your know-how
amounts to all kinds of canny
or uncanny stunts, tricks
and routines, with that thing
you got, that thing, that thing.
That self you hold so yours.
(it all runs to routines eventually,
repeated as needed) but what
we see is one: just you. So what
does the sticky and fluffy bluff
of these stupid human tricks
you do add up to mean?
Worth-wise? That's not
about human being better! It's
just human doing cool or tricky
moves and maneuvers. Great!
Ta-da!
The crowd roars!
Done! Next?
We're through?
Okay! And what are you worth
to you after? Same same?
Yeah, that's my take. Me too.
I tell you, I rake it in daily
all day and it comes up one.
So there's my level-set: self
-worth default level one (1).
What's the fucking crisis
A person's true self
is just what they give. Mask on,
mask off, every bit of it
lives and breathes and has blood
and brain and behind. It is all
the real
you will ever find.
Because you see,
of the strange natures
of what beings really are,
which it seems, they be.
So they are! Just what
they can be, or try
- and proceed to do.
To enact that guy
or gal or pal or enemy,
love.
Now, realize: is to just bring up
what's real into mind: also,
the reverse! To bring up
what's in mind, and in aimed,
spent drive, to fashion
that purse of silk from the mind's
sow's ear. When you've realized,
Ta-da! Then it has appeared.
Or else, you daydreamed. Go,
realize now all the best that
seemed. For to make-believe
Is just as much who
you are as you want
to be. We are not quite
dreams, but we're made
in just such stuff
as we gleam and glean
and steer and stroke upstream
to the meadows and hills
and bluff for broke. And
wherever you go,
what you give,
there you are.
Yes,
it's you.
It has all been you. I guess
that there was your best
so far. Well,
be good
as like, but at best
be true.
I'm the differ. I do not beg,
but plead for you to recognize
this non-discrepancy between
you and me, for we two
don't match. Like an egg
doesn't ever quite match
'til it cracks. Even then,
kind of hard to peg. All runny
and drippy and stuff, with sharp
fragile fragments of shell mixed
up. It's no break of deal, no flag
of red.
Catch!
A different kind of interplay,
snatched from the air instead!
Of or just scooped off of the turf.
The pass gone long, caught short,
somewhat worse for air, and then
run like a truck all the way!
To the zone where we end
as friends, someday
you and I
go home.
Together, all blushed
and coy. It's a key quite
distinct I have stuck
in comfort and joy,
and have found it fits.
My philosophy is
Differism. That's it
I am a Differist
- as well as "the differ."
Oh say, I suppose I could say
I'm the diffest, but hey
I wouldn't care to dither
over such dumb tits
as hierarchy notches
or scores, or hits.
And that's why you love
me in so many bits,
And that's why you moan
and yell at the sum
all my parts get up
to sometimes. Un
Yum
I'm so sorry 'bout it,
not "sorry not
sorry."
I can't seem to truck
with that kind of lorry but
I hope
that I do
make it up
sometime
in the end, either right now
and bam pow zoom, we are FINE
or by I.O.U., down the road.
Or by not-and-say-I-did (pretend),
unwind and unload all the burden,
and just call it borne. Or eventually,
by dint of main strength
and my ever-loving spend,
fulfill and exceed all conceivable
need for scorn.
If I don't, if I can't,
well,
go. As you will, as you must.
You know best. That's the differ!
He only knows better, never
best, so.
That's about us.
It is good we met. I'm the differ.
Please tell me we shall never
forget
for I know I shan't
your difference. So long as I've got
a live. Your diff and mine
combined, have made all
kinds of sense, plus
distinction fine.
My brain outperforms
all known others in mind,
but then - that's the angst
and pang of alienation,
isn't it? We never can truly
get inside another's
head
to wrack and wrench,
separate and tease apart
by individual ganglion,
suck up a sample of
the neuro electro
chemical think-noodle
simmering broth
in an eye-dropper
for analysis, (drop
by drop into naked
eye - see what happens!
) then chop up, sort,
weigh and assess
what's left
of their mental process,
and if we did, even
if we could?
That's a maniac murder move,
for sure, dude! Not too smart there
were you
Well.
That's the difference between
us, too. I knew that already. Oh?
So did you?
talk's easy
prove it
That burden of proof
is so light, I find
with the big ol' bag
of my oh-well-meant
mind flapping wide-open
as the breeze, and empty
all the time
in an active meditation
on this never-ending
never-rending incoming
surge of sensory slime
straight into a conscious
awareness that now
In the moment, there's
just no time. Only reason,
perception, deception
and the too-cute baby-coo
pudgy-hands clap approval
of similarity noted,
Which delights us
sometimes
in rhyme.
So you see.
We are different.
I know it.
So do you. Or if you don't:
let's at least agree
that we do differ,
there. Be
reasonably. Since we're stuck
with or without each other, well
viva le differ! And let's admit
(or in my case, confess) (or boast)
that between us two, I am the differ!
Far differ than most. I won't say
the diffest. Modesty abhors.
Might as well appreciate mine
while I get yours, though eh? Might
as well appreciate what
we can't quite
share.
At least, not without
a pretty big if,
and an and,
and/or
one fantastic but.
You know in those days, I was a real
bible-thumper, and by "real"
I do mean literally. I would thump
and thwack-clap boom that thing
like a rectangular bongo, and man!
It had a sweet thunk to it. A deep
boom, resonant and sound. Noise
or sound - it's versatile by how
you pound. At any rate. I could
make a sweet racket
on that book!
A lot of people have,
but I did literally. I am,
I find,
the real biblical literalist.
When it comes to making a sweet racket
out of the bible. I didn't care! It was no
sign of disrespect then, and no one
could mistake it for such. Not
the way I went on, with such
tone, boom nuance, deft rhythmic
staccato phrasing and cadence,
my trademark pitter-pat WHAM
-tssh! (I'd riff the pages a bit
for hi-hat) routine. People
(if I ever did it around anybody,
which I don't believe it occurred
to me to do) wouldn't mistake
my too-obvious ode mode of joy
and exuberance for anything but.
No sacrilege, barely any irreverence
- let alone blasphemy, forget it.
I was an imp with a halo cocked
rakishly at an angel in those days,
and hoo. Was she sweet.
Kind of broke me of the bible-thump
habit. You see,
she was more of a fundamentalist.
Suddenly my literalism seemed a tad
naïve. Well,
I did school her, more than half again
as much as she surely educated me.
Now where's that bible
Wait, what?
Well, it takes patience to follow
the bible, and not necessarily
the saintly kind. It's a fine, fine
line and a good book, they say
- but it doesn't exactly follow
well,
more to the point it mostly sits
there. On the shelf, the bedside
table, in a trunk, stowed in a backpack
for ballast while you hike, wherever
you put it. Assuming it's out, and
you want to follow it a stretch,
pace yourself! You can't follow
unless the mark you've chosen
to tail makes first moves, and
the bible habitually doesn't.
It sits.
Well, so we just stand. Patience comes
to those who wait. He who's lost
will hesitate, and we do.
Waiting on the bible, eager to follow
some of us, others of us tailing off
after people who claim to be bible
followers - but where's the lead? Seems
to me (and I'm not alone) that lots of those
"followers" are taking their own leads
and going their own ways, with good
intentions - and you know what kind
of handbasket
that ends up in. Still, lead on
bible.
I've got my eye on ya. Oh
wait. Oh
kay.
I guess you have to open the thing.
Go on a journey in your mind,
maybe hearken to something still,
small, and at least allegorically
audible. I hear ya Lord! Loud
and um. Well,
loud.
What.
Good food left to rot.
That's a way to say "leftovers"
and feel guiltier, I guess.
But
how good was that food,
if it didn't tempt us
to ingest?
All cold and bowled
and clumped and
congealed, sitting
in the fridge, what's left
of a meal to serve as
another meal,
perchance. Or, you know
we could have hot dogs
and dance
Responsibility
is the thing with feathers
like the modern Tyrannosaurus Rex
of legend, only better -
and it flaps its tiny arms,
takes flight to big bad wolf down
big huge beasts of consequence
to fruit into orchards
of blossoming trees.
That's a bellyache,
at the very least
but it's all in a day's voracious
feast
I swallowed a whole unchewed ice cube
it stretches as it rips down my guzzling throat
the Coca-Cola soothes and refreshes the wound.
Oh boy, I am glad I'm alive to note.
Note to self: in the future, make sure the ice
is all melted like you thought, in this glass
you forgot - and grabbed like a maniac
to drink down fast
before it can warm
even one more degree
towards hot
ahh
Hi I'm not alpha not beta
I'm omega. I came to put an end
to that shit,
I will,
Later
Some say it's bogus
when the onus is upon us -
but I say, stick it up your anus!
Onus is bonus.
When it bears down
and we get to decide, we got
to decide: do we just let the consequence
for not doing this violate us? Or
do we step up, flip the situation over
take it on and ride! Call's all y'all's
if you've got enough balls, might as well
bunt, hit some fouls and curves,
take one for the team and walk
or charge the mound, here comes
every pitch you will ever be served:
fast or as slow as they shoot or glide by.
Right over the plate: it's all yours.
Cut loose, crack boom watch that sucker
fly, or add one to your count of strikes
and balls. The onus is upon you now
- how shall you score?
It's all y'all's.
