I am burlap.
Heavy, coarse and strong.
Uncomfortable to look at
long. You picture yourself
wearing me, and you're
more into silks, you see.
Or cotton, soft and breathable.
Or even wool, for big warm
coats!
But I
am burlap underwear.
And nothing else!
I see
you are
a bit intrigued,
a bit repulsed.
You must be wondering how
I'd feel, with inner
fascination cringe?
Oh, anyway
I have my hopes.
When someone slips a notch or two
From everything to nothing new
When presence fills with keening lack
More drifting off than coming back
When someone knew you like yourself,
it's like you've lost yourself as well.
Important parts you'd given them
That none can mend or break or tell,
except this once-surprising one.
Since only they saw that in there.
Caught that angle, wove that light,
saw the music, had to share.
Such things are
always all surprise.
From catch, to keep,
to wise unfurl.
You'd think
you'd be surprised to reach
the ends of it! In fraying whirl,
in settling and trickle out to drabs
and drips, but
no. Not so.
It's still the fact
of it at all
that fills me with surprise,
you know.
Your expiration is
about to end, at which point
you renew. Automatically.
You will be on our plan again if you do.
Please check the conditions and terms.
You'll see. They have somewhat changed,
as you might well guess. Yet our service
and rates remain the best. And
you're coming back in! Now
to see
for yourself.
Press one for okay.
Press two for help.
We make ourselves food
then we have to eat it
even though it's no good.
We make ourselves love
then we have to love it
even though it's no good.
Why can't we learn
to make it good?
How hard can it be
to make good food?
Good love's easier
than making bad
it has to be
it has to be.
But we make ourselves
what we make ourselves,
either everyday,
or eventually.
We make ourselves this
'til it's all we have,
and it has to be.
Come see what you can do to me
Come see what I can do to you
Come see what we can do to us
I'll be the me if you be you
or you could be the me all day
and all night too, first-personally
I don't mind getting us mixed up
We'll straighten out eventually
to you, we, us, me,
all the way home
A ply is half
a move in chess.
A trade takes two
plies - one move,
yes. To ply one's
trade means sacrifice
- unless you nip,
and they don't bite!
But if so, check six
moves ahead! They
probably saw some
move instead, and if
you missed it, you'll
get pawn'd.
Or rook'd,
or queen'd
or dead,
or trodden
on.
you absolutely the cutiest pie
you look so absocute I already die
it's like I go to heaven and got kicked out
because you look a me and give me some pout
I beg of you hey no pout look please
you said it's my pout not yours you tease
I said you pouted first you said no did not
so I said OK three two one now
stop!
so we did
team work
no pout in team
Ant vs. Bee
in a winner take all.
Ant lost the fight
- ant ran down a hole.
Scored as a forfeit. Bee
last seen - making a beeline
back to the queen! That's
out of bounds!
If ant stood strong, he
could have won by
forfeit. What
a sad song.
Live all our lives this
way, humanity! Let life
be a fight you miss on the way by,
in a race to wherever you had to be!
You were going that way
anyway, huh?
Sigh.
Hm. "Integrate"
to me has a ring
of nonliving elements. Used
of the living,
it feels clinical and
mechanistic. I'd agree
"assimilate" is an undesirable whiff,
though. Seems sinister to me
as a goal for humans incoming. It means
essentially become
as or unto
like or similar.
"Integrate" never alters
the element's essence at least!
The integrated
part
is itself whole!
But only a part, though.
Of a greater whole, like
a cog having fits issues,
maybe. Not wholly
everybody's kind of party,
integration.
"Include" is cool!
I mean, it's almost
too neutral. Says nothing
of fit, compatibility, congeniality,
alignment or common bond,
just "...here! Included!"
Present!
"We drew the
same line around
you as us."
"What
has the drawn
line done though?
Does it signify?
Are we like?
Are we parts
of a bigger snick-click
fit machine?"
"No! No, just
a fulsome, mutual
toleration of presences
here!"
"EXCELLENT," seethes
the merely included one. "I am MY OWN,
then - and FREE to pursue own good and gain!"
This stinks like self, so..."...yet out of gratitude
for my includers, I include their gain, too,
as good - where it violates NOT MY OWN."
Risky, perilous business
mere inclusion. It lacks
checks. Controls.
Inclusion of the human element
is always perilous. Risk of
indignation. 'Butt-hurt.' Self
feels voided and annoyed by
some overriding context meant
as desirable, to assimilate you
completely - or integrate you
in a coherence not merely
or really or nearly your own. Best,
some
find,
might be just
to declare inclusion,
and let it be
the unspecified kind! A deep
reconciliation or high end
alignment can develop naturally!
An outpouring and flowing
to confluence of individual
purposes, all present! Without
hints, shoves, forced compliance,
disapproval or other guidance, or if not,
the included part can fuck off!
Go be apart! "Disinclude, then! You
were never
really one
of us"
...we just tolerated your
presence, essence and unique
nature or character - and/or THIS
is the gratitude by which you reject
us for nothing, fine! Then
GO
go.
Perilous going, though.
Maybe stay awhile,
figure this out. The others
seem to like it
that's how they get you
by a mysterious liking
of it.
What the hell
are these people for?
No knowing
no telling either - pisses
them off, telling that. Just
a hapless, default solidarity
of mutual alienation and
a reciprocity of ignorance,
overcome by degrees
in a common and agreed
purposeful avoidance
of individual purposelessness.
That's cool! That's what
we all need, probably but
it matters a lot
who we get it with.
How they get us. How
we get each other. We are
all quite like
an assimilar kind
in this specific integration
point, we find.
Inclusion's the real key.
Exclusion doesn't do it no
not at all. Inclusion
does it. Therefore
anyone who tries
to come 'round up
in here assimilating
or integrating must be
rejected! That will learn
them the lesson, asshole! Include!
Not yourself! Inclusion is something
we must do TO you - it's no unilateral
self-injection move! No, we
include
you, or not at all.
That's why it means
so much, arguably.
Potentially
so arguably
"Anyone who Fs with meeeee gets
SPREAD like butter on BREAD
that's popped in a TOASTER ruining
the toaster DEAD"
try again
"Anyone who Fs with meeeee gets
SPREAD like butter on BREAD
that's popped FROM a toaster
making it toast INSTEAD,
perhaps "then eaten in BED?" no
that makes 'Fs with' risk
coming off like 'SEXED with,'
decidedly NOT the arrangement
to necessitate a series of cautionary
THREATS with
next, with
"Anyone who Fs with meeee gets
CONFUSED by one
in a series of cautionary THRATS
that I've come
up with previous-LY! Then
delivered post-coitally - wait
in the 'Fs with' metaphor ONLY,
see? - admittedly diminishing
the cautionary ASPECT, some-what.
Making the THREAT inescapable!
THAT'S what you get
when you F's with meeee!
In the non-coital sense, let us both agree
(and it goes without saying, consensually!)
(though vigorous UN!-ambiguous VERBAL
consent is the hottest unmistakably!) BUT
that's what you get! In the other context!
A hard-to-understand, unfairly belated
inescapably vain postcautionary threat!
Which has failed its ostensible purpose
to deter! Since delivered after I was
already F'D!"
"...With."
Man.
I need to work
on more of these. Gotta
stockpile if you want credible
deterrent. Otherwise word gets
'round. "Oh,
don't mess with that dude
his belated threats are just what
you don't want to have to deal with
figuring out. All metaphor, and
inapplicable usually. Best just
not to mess."
RIGHT. And by 'MESS' they mean
what I mean by 'Fs with!' So,
works out. Point gets
across.
bam
you're boring as shit
and I'm sick of your blat
and pule.
Talking on
about daily this
/that
that
you
can't
liven
up now
to save
your life.
What happened
to you?
Did you
rife
strife
...
bife cife dife fife
you forget how to fife?
KNIFE! ahh dang no
relevance. Strong word
no place to stick it, story
of my knife
Yeah OK fair point maybe I'm not
so
hot
either but
it's too late
to go back now
and change your life
to something with a better
rhyme for it. You get the
pointy part.
Jon walked in
nervous as hell
he knew he has a name
and he knew it so well
he knew no one else
had a name at all
it kind of pissed him off
but you couldn't tell
because he couldn't say
because his mama told
him the secret that day:
Your name is your very own
and nobody else has one
Your name is your very own
and nobody else has one
Jon saw a girl
he was intimate with
their eyes lit up
when they thought of it
He didn't know her name
and he wished he could
She didn't even know
what a name was good
for
but
you couldn't tell
because Jon was the only one
with a name,
and he didn't say
he thought it'd be too much
to explain how his mama said:
Your name is your very own
and nobody else has one
Your name is your very own
and nobody else has one
Well history class was a pain in school
'cause nobody's name goes down in that
which makes reputations seem pointless, too
As for legacies, what the hell are those?
We can't tell apart our designer clothes
or argue which cola is best, except
by a long-drawn description of flavor notes
- which is arguable and subjective at best
Jon's name is his very own
and nobody else has one
Jon's name is his very own
and nobody else has one
Jon wonders if he could
become famous if he could
explain where names come
from
and what they'd be so much good
for, too.
Jon knows it would be easier
if we had some.
But how do you explain a thing
like that? When society lacks
the frame?
Jon is a thing of someone's
which nobody has at all
Jon is a made-up thing
that would be unrelatable
Who's gonna let the sun
shine down? Who's gonna
let the sunshine down?
Is it you, mister cloud?
Were you in the way
when the sunshine down?
I'm gonna kill you
Is it you, mister world?
Did you turn away
when the sunshine down?
I'm gonna kill you
Nobody better stop the sunshine down
Everybody let the sunshine down!
When the sunshine down
Get out of the way
let the sunshine down
or I'm gonna kill you
Who's gonna let
the sunshine down?
Everybody let the
sunshine down!
Was it you, mister house?
Did you block it out
when the sunshine down?
I'm gonna burn you
Was it you, mister stars?
Did you crowd it out
when the sunshine down?
I'm gonna - whatever
Why you gotta bring
the sunshine down?
Who are you to stop
the sunshine down?
Was it you?
Was it you?
Don't turn away from me,
I been asking if you
let the sunshine down
Public humiliation by means
of nudity.
I think these means
need to be rethought. First,
they're mean. If it be just
barely noble to see such ends
bared, still, how do you justify
that? Second, the logic is ass.
How is extreme immodesty
supposed to make us humble?
The world knows the nude
are brash, arrogant showoffs.
Is that the ploy? "Strip them
nude. Right out in public, as
a ploy! They will die in shame
not literally though - we need
their living shame to achieve
this goal: total humility. WHAT?"
That's too obvious a ploy
to be pulled off. Shame.
Let alone the clothes,
which aren't yours. That's
stealing. Let alone
the touching!
That's assault!
Let it alone, please
let them be. Their lack of
humiliation is truly theirs,
their problem. Not one's
own. Let it alone,
maybe.
Work on solutions within
for why the want and need
in you for others to be humble
is so great and hot. Admit it:
you perv. You project and
overcompensate for your
own clothes! You are
the unhumble one,
and you want others
to pay a steep price
in immodesty for
your own attire,
while you watch!
Buddy, you are
no buddy to these
people trying to
coax humility forth
by such ass backwards,
cocked out, tits up, pussy
ass means. It's
mean.
If their vain,
arrogant modesty
affronts you so, takes
you aback, makes you
want them stripped
of whatever dignity
you imagine their
prude crutch clothes
impart, you are looking
in the wrong place for
other people's humility.
Try the heart. Maybe
find some there in
your own. Then maybe
the mind will stop swelling
its shameful and lascivious
course,
and grow a pair
of virtues, boss:
humility, and
modesty.
Sweet!
One knows its size
and place in the grand cosmic
scheme! The other is ashamed,
humiliated at the very idea
of being thought a show-off. Isn't
that right? Don't strip modesty
and humility of dignity
in a vain, arrogant ploy
to humiliate those
who just want
not to be
thought immodest,
parading nude
for other's yuks,
yucks, jollies and titillations.
It's cruel, pretty rude
and frankly small of you.
You can't make others small,
sweet and humble by turning them
into public displays, prancing and parading
conveniently nude. For you to approve
of that's unnatural! It's only human!
Plus they might like it. Backfire.
Proud and sure in their own skin, saying
"Not so bad, right?" Oh my God
you nude, pompous ego freak!
Shameless and for real in your
own skin! Now what have you
done! They're less humble than
ever!
You,
fool,
were looking for humility
in all the wrong place:
the surface.
True humility
goes deeper than skin
and sits within, with
justice, mercy, compassion
and a little virtue I like to call
forbearance: the restraint of one's
justified wrath! Against clothes,
perhaps? Well,
that sounds like a personal problem
if so.
Rethink
it please. Public
humiliation
by means of nudity
is the very wrongest means
you could pull off, and wanting it
so bad you strain against your own
clothes is a tipoff: you're the perv sir,
not the prim and modest individuals
taunting you by going about clothed!
It's a bad look,
and a pretty
dirty trick
to try to induce humility
by means of theft, assault
and immodesty. It just
won't work, will it?
What were you thinking
no beautiful thought,
I assure you leads
so scandalously
to entice mind's eye.
Fantasize about compassion
instead. Justice. True virtue.
Mercy. Now that's hot
Who knows how the spirits work?
It's possible they work without limits
Slaving away unphysically
by any means you care
to explain,
they can do it
you see
because spiritually
is like mentally: it
is
unphysically bound.
For real. It is so. For when
have we ever seen a spirit
physically bound? No
physics or forces or matter
or charge
can put obstacle in,
where a spirit's at large.
Yet responsive they are!
To emotion and thought
- they're attracted to these,
and so sometimes caught
I believe it's the hidden
affinity
between mental and spiritual
which they
more clearly than we
can see.
It enables the spirits
to notice, react
to anguish, desire,
fear and pain
- strong pull, clear call
even though they're not really
in your brain at all.
It is six of one
and nonetheless:
because the spirits
are like
imagination
I guess - in limitlessness,
if in nothing else. In lack
of hard bounds to block
oneself, such as physical beings
like we
find 'round. In every shape
and size you could want.
This link of unlimitedness
(mind for us, spirit for them)
is the kink that fascinates.
They can't quite believe
we believe
that sh!t,
so
of course they spring
to prove how great
and limitless, responsive,
if not
exactly responsible they
can be. Pretty much doing anything
(except
affect
the world you see)
they can function, move about
and operate invisibly
any spiritual way we conceive,
or care to explain. They are
as limitless in being and action
(provided ineffectual)
as we are in brain. Conception and fancy,
immaterially - that aspect of ours
and their entirety
works almost precisely the same.
It really is remarkable
- and suggestive. Perhaps,
the mind is infinite,
and we are all spirits?
Let us not get
too far ahead
of ourselves
on that.
There's a very long way
to go - a limitless way -
in understanding spirit
before we can truly
conclusively say.
Besides
nobody wants to hear it.
You linked
me a link.
It was definitely
you.
Not a hijacked
account
spam ops false share. It was you
and I clicked. In trust. And
it
was
a
poem.
Which
I think you wrote
and I read, assuming as much but
it was nothing about me, or us, or
anything we'd discussed, or nature,
or art, or science,
or sex. It was
totally unrelated
and unpleasant! It made
an uncomfortable, awkward
effect wriggle and relax
inside, in a minor disgusting
way - not innate. The poem
itself? OK. If I'd found it
without your help, I'd have loved it
at least a bit. But
because I could not tell what
you wanted at all,
for me to take,
the whole thing
reeled. Stringless and taut
in awkward feel. Loose,
no, loosed - no.
Just loose.
I am a fish unmoored,
in your poem sea. Unyanked,
unswung by line
or hook, there was no opportunity
to wriggle free, no choice to surrender
inevitably, I was so
uncaught
in the moment. I swam and
swum
and I wish
- not quite that you'd linked someone
else - not quite
but I wish you had not linked me. Or
as if you must, I suppose - I wish
you had not left me quite
so free.
Also the rhyme scheme
was incoherent
kinda
I discovered
who is covering it up?
Don't you think I
need
whistleblower protection?
If I
am
the victim,
then I am
harassed by people
who deny me protection
like that. I need
maybe
you have additional info I
missed?
Please
if your story is like
mine, get it right
- I will not be derailed
by nonsense in accuracy.
If you
really have lived
this experience,
let's unite!
Trying to prove
who owes us this. I believe
it must be my persecutors.
Sorry - ours. But in cases
not provably criminal, who
is above them? Who sets
the stage, works the strings?
Who controls the charge, and
how can they be exposed?
Short of the difficulty of
proving a negative - which
everybody knows?
To make them take
action to make me
sure.
Us sure. Secure
and safe in convictions,
I stand harassed and endangered
on every side
but mine
is at least
undivided
on this
at last
with you
in this selfsame
fix. So
you say
you are,
so I say
I believe
in this. But
do I believe you?
Or in you? Or just
a mix?
I don't know yet
it's bliss
so let's bet
and see.
Yoga pants on men. OK!
Just like Speedos, except
more
I see no predicament.
Comfy, stretchy, if not
too obscure, but -
tight-ass dungarees?
Taut hard cotton slacks,
snug fit? Please,
my eyes cannot quite breathe!
How'd you get yourself in it?
Somehow, women seem (this is
mysterious, in hows and whys)
to pull it off quite effortless. I guess
They're simply more clothes-wise.
I've lost count
of how many times I forgot
to ask you to remind me of
all we've got,
but you
do it anyway,
effortlessly -
I don't
think you ever even try
or agree, or know
that you're doing it.
Whether or not -
you sure do remind me
to ask you
how many times
I forgot?
I couldn't say
though 'cause I
lost count
That slip
is a blank check
testament
to the amount
Can I put it inside you?
If "it" is my heart?
Will you ride it all slippery
slick and bold, rolling your hips
and arching your back?
Now
what if "it"
isn't my heart?
Would you scold?
Ooo.
Did you even look?
Look at what you did there
Did you even think?
How should things be middling fair?
Did you even say?
"That's the way we take care!"
I see what you did, there
I can't even
can't even
The idea that you'd leave that like that
The idea that you'd leave that like that
The idea that you'd leave that like that
gets you a smack! Let's
leave that like that
I feel like all this time
these very hills
and peaks were rising
and rolling and heaving
into being, it was just
so you could do that.
The landscape held its breath,
and clapped.
I wish you were a geek about
more of the things I am a geek about
even though
you would expose me as a
half
ass
geek
on what I love most
a half
ass
geek
I am not even close
to what a geek should be
in these chosen fields
of my geekery
I wish you were a geek
about these
like me.
But you'd be better than me.
And we
could geek about them endlessly,
and you
could teach me what a geek about these
should be.
I guess the fact is
I'm more of a geek
about you
than anything else I find.
Maybe you
could educate me on what
a geek about you
should be
sometime
I was at that age.
I think every kid is -
in a sense, differently
- but it's still gee whiz.
I could feel every one
in my mind agree. It
happened only once
and endlessly. Since
then, in-the-moment
has stretched to now.
I never get out.
So far,
so then -
I know it will
end. I do not
know how.
It is just my way, so
it seems to tend, so
I tend it so.
It's like gardening.
It takes constancy,
and one hell of a lot
of spring.
"Who is that ugly-ass bitch
with the braids?" he said
but she
looked right at me.
"HE said" I repeated. To clarify.
She kept looking at me, though.
Right in the I.
"Back!"
I yelled low, like a voice
inside.
"baby got,"
I additionally, gamely
supplied, lamely but
not enough
for pride. ("Baby got"
was not done to make "back"
lamer, but as if to ensure
she would not think she'd picked up
a lion tamer, stalking her now
from back behind, with a chair
in hand and no doubt a whip
somewhere)
These things must needs
be said, or they shan't
be gotten or pointed out!
See, I'd spied and referred
(by the safe word "back")
to a fair specimen of the same,
no flaw, no lack - this was,
that day,
a sort of ideal
made real in the classic sense:
a back.
So sleek visually contoured
it made my eyes feel. You know,
"backless dress" is not really
the word for that. It's backful
as hell, way more than most
dresses! This subtly-muscular
dorsally-sweeping expanse
playing hide and sweep
with her tresses rose up
from above those two dimples
some have, like dents
like eyes, if the gluteal cleft
were a nose (a drawn line,
picture it) and who knows
what the mouth would be?
The undercuppage of the buttocks?
I laughed! I couldn't see these
making a mouth. But oh, what
a nose though. I would would beep
that nose, I suppose. I suppose
too much
I might always beep a nose
too much - enough!
The point!
It's a back I meant!
Not to take her aback
from behind, just
a word of assent
to the fact her back
was remarkable.
And she knew it, or
had just been informed.
It was cool! I did really
not have to go on, "clarify."
For sure.
But I did.
I had flung Mixalot
in the mix to dispel the whole
lion-tamer routine I'd inadvertently
raised from a cub, now risen rampant,
soon to a rampage, bub!
I had to do something.
"Got back!"
I supplied cheerfully!
Know this. Not one word
of my clarification
was lion. All that big
cat stuff was implied
by the chair and the whip
which I ditched
just before she turned,
and kindly laughed
in my face, as usual. It
was one of our in-jokes. I
was the setup man. Fed her
a line, and she punched it.
I hadn't quite explained yet
what had just happened out
loud, though, so:
"In the classic sense of 'back,'"
I lamely gamed. And:
"...And probably in the presumptuously
-familiar (unwarranted) sense of 'baby,'"
(which was duh and no duh in one, by
that point, since she'd already given her
"All's-well,-Whew!" laugh - but it was
too late by laugh-time, as I'd already thought
to say this, and as it's the thought that counts,
and as further it'd already passed check-stage,
stamped 'go,' I felt it a waste to mount an
appeals process. So I said it!)
(Having also by this point as you note
completely lost any sense or pretense
of incorporating inner monologue
with outer dialogue (hope sprung
foolish, there) as a half-uttered
half-thought rhyme scheme, weaving
an epic narrative poem fit to get caught
up in, perchance). (Bold attempt
as usual, but lost the thread - apparently.)
"...but it was necessary-"
I continued, justifiably needlessly
"-to complete an allusion to one of a
justly-bygone era's then-popular songs, which
were always of course a bit risqué."
I triumphantly paused.
Then the capper
(just in case):
"If apology is offensive, I apologize."
I had been perfecting my hurt look,
and wow. Still some sweet, sweet
perfecting to do on that one
Synchronicity City
was Coincidence Burg. But
before, it was just two towns
unmixed, unmerged, since
neither populace was aware
both towns had been built
on shared grounds, there. One
was called Fate.
And the other was
called Fate.
This
can only partly
explain the long wait.
The girl with the world
in her world-wide hands
met the boy with the skies
in his star-struck eyes
and his eyes clouded over
and her face hid in hands
since they both saw their fates
called for too many plans.
Just kidding. They skipped
happy-everly forth, straight
to afterwards, straight to till
death of course, and they did
their part and raised rows
of corn on course to the end.
All their words were born.
And the narrative came.
It was meant to be, since
she meant it and he
had come to trust
what she meant
(or she could get
mean, you know?).
They decided to prefer
the pronoun "us."
Between now when they meet
(cute sad and distrait), and the end
we've decided skipped to (great!), let's say
came ripping yarn and heartstrings
swelling up to soar upon like
gilded wings,
There is an important
web
of world widening lines
drawing
taut together even
and odd all over lands,
coasting to seas and back
up the other end
as if
distance
had been vanquished, banished,
reduced
again
to conceptual. People
People
Strangers, even - strangers
especially largely swept up in this net
of insidious effect and unknown cause,
finding each other rude, rude - why?
Why here? They ask. Why
are people rude on this site?
People
are rude onsite, people. It's not
the "site." Get over it, calm
up, grow down and root
in the new nature, which
is - spoiler! Alert! Achtung!
- a bunch of computers strung
together by lines you can see
- material, bendy, cords essentially -
and beams and waves in the air you can't
see
The beams and waves, I mean. You
can't see
them.
The air
you can see
obviously
these days. It's blue,
and way way up there if
it's a good day
Not too much of this damn
'water vapor' pollution (so called)
which
is for reals, by the way. We invented it
by calling them
"clouds,"
and acting with alacrity,
foreseeing generations of need, want
and cowed obeisance, establishing gods
(or in one cheapskate case, a titan!) to hold
them up. It was done differently (culture),
but usually you hold the sky up by the solid blue
dome above all the water vapor pollution or 'clouds'
so-called.
That works for the day.
At night, stars do
the work, apparently. Lil' spikes
driven in bright! To fix it.
I wonder what it was like before
they thought of that. Broken,
I know, but how could they tell? In any case,
those ancient sages of loresmithery and lore-war
back in their age of the world of lorecraft,
wow.
They invented things today's scientists
feel
ashamed of.
How can you compete
with solving the problem of the sky?
Way up there before aeroplanes, with nothing
evidently holding it up, by spiking the night-time
sky with stars and hiring or press-ganging
gods (and one titan) into service all over
the world?
An idea independently arrived-at
just by looking up! These geniuses
solved so many problems science today
can't even see to study. Yet their names
- Ugh or Grunt, probably in most cases
- no loss - are in most cases lost. See,
The Storyweaver
(unlike today) was no superstar power
-mover in the industry. The show was
the show, not the showmaker.
We did that.
It was us who took care of the sky,
for all future generations to look up,
breath relieved sighs (a boon to trees
and vegetation back then - it's not talked
about, but humans have always done
their part for nature!) and rest easy.
We did that.
We were all geniuses once. So now,
this new threat, in our weakened,
weaksauce, weak-ass diminished
and intellectually-stunted, crippled
state (I do not bemoan or demean
the stunts modern intellectual cripples
accomplish - it is all the more to laud,
given their evident handicaps and
acrobatics), is even worse:
A web of human communication.
Oh yes, it's there. It is real all between
us and around. Hung and strung.
Interlicked, interpoked, interpenetrating
and (who knows?) invaginating
us all, for all I know. How
can we tell? These are deep,
deep fakes I'm hearing about,
and in that sense - when you fake it
deep enough, it gets real
I've been told. How real?
You can get stalked on it. You can
get bullied on it. It, the so-called web
("SCW" for short) is a thing in
and around and very much about
the world. You can spend time
on there. Pastime. You can work
a job on it, or via it. It's sucking
jobs upline (which is what they
call it, despite downline would
be more apropos? This SCW
is bringing us down that line!)
You can die upline.
People have, right in front
of the terminal. That is why
it's called that. They want
you, maybe
to die upline.
Worse, most life
-deranging to some,
you can "meet"
some faraway babe
and change both your lives
forever no-takebacks by wasting
years, even decades, finding one or both
of you waking up old in a different country,
still together despite the messy and horrendous,
acrimonious divorce ("we just decided heck, let's
get unmarried!" - he, "turns out we loved it better
the other way," - she
I'm not being bigoted here. Those pronouns
are accurate to specific case.
"...But we decided to keep the living-on-the
-same-landmass part," - both. "Same house
even," he piped up cheekily! "When you
behave," she cheeked, pipe-uppily)
The point is it is changing lives.
Now.
Ongoing.
It's some kind of web. Look out
I know I said "web" already, but
does that tell you how to spot it?
"Unseen web. Invisible web." Better.
Watch out! For the web is everywhere
you can't see, and
growing popular. More
and more people suck
into it all day.
Soon
it will be almost
insurmountable to stop.
And despite it is literally
and figuratively everywhere,
nobody's talking about it, and
why not? Who wants us not to know?
I just wanted to warn
you I have checked and dug deep
where hands and eyes should not
go.
No one is talking about it.
Even on any internet site
or even in-person (that's
when - never mind).
It's a big hush-up.
They don't
apparently
want you
to know,
but well
too bad
now you know
Distance fusion engine revving
Getting hotter quicker letting
fundamental forces quiver
quake and coalesce to giver,
building up to points unleashing
heart and liver brain frenetic
pressure, heat and energetic
fields encompass, sparks
and flying snaking shaky bolts
undying almost almost to immortal
hit the switch! Transmit to portal!
Is it working on your end?
Am I coming through?
Just send
I always want to talk
to you when you're asleep.
Lying like an angel there,
next to me, invisible.
I wouldn't want to trouble
your angelic dreams.
And so I swallow
all my words.
My belly
screams.
I know the source
of this complaint,
and it's not you.
It's just these nights'
unspoken wishes
missing you.
Punish the object that is misused. Say
"This is why we can't have good things."
Abuse all the users of things themselves
that have by their use been declared unwell,
consigned to deep wells and garbage dumps -
regardless whose use was well and good!
Or whose use was ill.
Punish
the things
themselves.
This will show
how we're merciful,
how wise to judge
no one personally.
Just deprive us all,
deprive equally -
until all the things
we have ruled out sum
to an obstacle of such size
and weight, squeezing out
the life we would never kill.
Punish the things, not
the people we hate.
People have places
all over their faces,
all over their fronts -
all over their backs.
In fact "backs," "fronts"
and "faces" are places!
But there are so many
more places than that.
Some places are big,
with smaller places in!
Some places are tiny,
but someplace surrounds.
So let's you and me play
Place-Point-Say! It's one
of the easiest games around.
Hey, you go first! Take your finger
and point! Poke gently anyplace
that you like, on me. Or any place
that you don't like - but you have
to touch if you want to see.
Then I'm up! On the spot
- I will have to name that place.
If I can't? That's a point for your side!
If I can, my turn! I will try
to score a point
in a place upon you
whose name you can't find.
But if it's just a made-up name
you give, no score for me.
That's what it's called!
It counts! But we have
to remember that place
and the name we found.
That's its name, y'all.
If it comes up later,
and you name it wrong
- that's foul on you,
and a point for me.
Same if I pull that trick!
You see, only the first
made-up name per place
is home free.
If a place has many real names,
you are always free
to use these
on you.
But a place with no name
is the point of the game! We've got
to discover and learn what's new.
This game is the way
we discover ourselves,
and what all of the names
of our places are.
Restrictions: if the place named is
"shirt" or "pants" or anything like
- a removable place? That counts!
But it only counts once, then you have
to dispense with that place. Removable
places are stunts.
For a big place name (like "front")
if the other says "big!" then that name
does count, but is then retired
- you can't use it any more
for that big ol' place. Unless you
challenge: "No big!" you can say!
Then the big-caller's on the spot!
And they have to point out
three places with names, within
the called-big place. That's a point
for them if they can, and the place
is ruled big, and they keep their turn.
Otherwise, the whole game could be played
just saying "front!" and "back!" every time.
No fun - and nothing learned.
However, no made-up names
in the big challenge. For only
the person whose places they are
gets to make that up - though
of course they are free
to use a name the other made-up,
if they have that same place
on them. In fact, it's considered
a courtesy.
The most important thing
when laying out rules
is to lose the rhyme scheme
(if any) as you go. This shows
"this is no poem, but some serious
rules for a game that matters."
Poems are kinda kid stuff, all
sing-song nursery beats and meter.
Rules are very adult. Serious!
One last rule. Important: not the eyes.
Well for me, not the eyes. At the start
of the game,
we can each declare
three places out-of-bounds.
The eyes count as two.
If I were the man
And you were the woman
and people came runnin'
to save us from ruin,
because they all had so much
invested in us,
because we were the reason
they're believin' in love -
Could you take the hit?
Could I suck it up?
For everyone's sake?
Trudge on and adjust?
Because they all had so much
invested in us?
Despite between us
we'd stopped believing in love?
We must
I really think we must
I think we kinda must
this love is a trust
There is only one option.
It should be a religion. The 1st
& Only Option Holy Church
of Your Decision. The Holy
Option's mandatory. None
may refuse. What happens
if we refuse?
"You get JACK." What if
we don't want jack? "You
get it." Then what if we go
with the option? "Then
you get all the jack
you want." WE DON"T
WANT JACK!
