conversational – Page 11

Another Question

Considering how rampant–and frequent–they are elsewhere throughout the universe, I know you’re not really surprised that the chance for any number of phantasmagoric happenstances to play out at this pediatric-leaning syndrome symposium would remain slim to none (as one might say when pressed), right? As we usually observe, the only guarantee at one of these gatherings would be that at least one poor soul is coming away with a scraped knee (left or right is another question).

Hey, haven’t you been here just as long as I have?! I’m having a hard time getting over the bald complacency responsible for such a critical misinterpretation of our most sacred pemmican rulebook! It’s been nigh on six years since that last grand gesture in semantics peppered our idealized fields of vision, and I won’t have this unqualified jabber jockey over here just go on and on about 21st Century-specific chesterfield modulation practices (his favorite spotlight-stealing topic) more than once per full moon, no matter how persuasive he happens to be when the stars come alignin’.

Dips and Dives

Exaggerating one’s influence should be among those acts reserved for the dolomite entrepreneurs out there with more margarine than non-dairy coffee creamer at their regular disposal.

If we allow these blowhards to navigate the kitchen table’s width and fail to uncover the tangential ne’er-do-wells we’ve been warned about, then what was it all for?

All we can say is that protesting such an alteration of manifest destiny (density?) comes with the price of freedom (and a bag of chips in some circumstances), and nothing short of Ozzy the Philistine could resurrect the embattled intentions of those labor organizers mainly concerned with seizing the means of production.

We must remain ever-vigilant, for you never know when pediatric charlie horse tendencies will rear their ugly heads in the recesses of adolescent America. We (the Americanses) once sat atop the global jungle gym, our ingenuity and general cuteness inspiring power-seekers a world around to blush with envy at the amenities they could only imagine (until that coal train came a rolling down the bend with the promise of sooty modernity), filling their heads with unrequited lust for widgets and modules and bells and whistles that could fill their modest spaces—digital and otherwise.

And, of course, once even a modicum of that prosperity had begun evening the materialistic score, we flat out lost our lease on the planet. As our Gaia gathers the foreclosure paperwork, we scramble like the varmints we really are, pushing and shoving, blaming all but ourselves and projecting our greed onto unrealistic scapegoats for just long enough to lose any chance of saving what had once been humanity’s little slice of paradise that, against all odds, had once been a serviceable milieu.

Ah well, the sloughing-off period is just gonna have to start a little early this time around, with a tad more english on the dips and dives.

Parlance

It’s my unrelenting plan
to escape to the future
at any time now, to a time
where the ones greeting me
want only to offer the knowledge
and dynamics of their era.

We’re all quite familiar with that little bit of
science fiction by now–the storied
advanced civilization that doesn’t so much mind
a past-person stumbling upon their developments.

Ya see, these folks would require
astute pupils for their lessons
in temporal psychology, so
if an intuitive person
were to find themselves ensconced
in such an environment,
these lovely future guardians
would instinctively root out
the nature of said snoop’s intentions–
not to mention their accent
or parlance of the time
they oh so unwittingly represent.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Drawing composed August, 2019–
rollerball pen and dry erase marker on printer paper

Four to Thirteen

Picking up where we left off
shouldn’t be too much of a hindrance
to us this evening. Sometimes
an elegant tail-end reception fiasco
is just what you need
to guarantee
that end-of-days proceedings
are kicked off in style.

Do we have a believable universe here? Do we have a character with whom we would like to share our collective journeys? If we have no character identification, then why is this even being proposed at all?

Are we so obsessed with plot that we fail to build our world model around anything else? I would say no, but I’ve been programmed to provide that answer. For you see, I come from simple means. My mother was a mushroom forager and my father took his canoe from out of the barn one day and paddled out of our lives forever. I had a herniated vertebra in my back from the ages of four to thirteen, after which time a medical miracle cure fixed it permanently. Now I only have to deal with the crippling daily hallucinations involving my needless slaughter at the hands of a cult of murderous clowns.

But enough about me, I’m sure you all have dealt with various traumas in your lives and you’d rather not hear the boring details of mine. You see, I’m generally a very simple person with very few wants or needs at the end of the day. I put on my pants one leg at a time, just like everyone else. Well, aside from the fact that I need to have my pants made custom to accommodate the extra leg I sprouted a little while back (maybe a complication from that miracle back cure, who knows?). Well, calling it a full-blown leg is a bit generous, but you get the gist.

Lil Yeller Fellers

I had quite the feisty colony of bees stored up,
only to leave them back in Georgia–
in the hands of my dingus brother, no less.
God, what kind of mess did I make of this?

I miss them lil yeller fellers, but
becoming a full-time yankee tartographer
means you need to make supreme sacrifices
for the good of the craft and its reception.

It’s bad enough
that folks have never heard of this field,
and even worse when they just shrug it off
like some kind of joke
without really stopping to think about it.

You know what? I don’t have the time
to convert the unbelievers anyway. Matter
of fact,
I’m gonna go get my bees back. Tartography
just ain’t what it used to be.

Finding Ideas

Where does one find ideas?

I have a few options already conveniently laid out for that, just in case you’re wondering and would like a bit of inspiration for your next writing session.

Ideas may be found:

• when you’re on the back of a rhino during sweeps week
• when you’re looking for an easy win at whatever particular sweepstakes gobbledygook
• in the shower, when you’re rehashing the constitutionality of bellybutton rings
• when going down an elaborate water slide and your swim attire bunches up on you
• in the intricate landmass of one’s diverted psyche
• in the cheaps bin at your friendly neighborhood record store
• as you’re taking a break from the mindless rock breaking that Uncle Sam thought you’d enjoy doing as an act of courtesy towards the U S of A
• when the idea of finding ideas has gone horribly wrong and you’re scrounging around in the dark to try to concoct something before your friends ridicule you for taking so long to come up with just one idea, but then you remember that you don’t have any friends, and you’ve been defending yourself this whole time (while everybody around you seems to lack interest in your entire deal, which seems ludicrous to you until you passionately enlist the support of total strangers and get the reaction that only the more pragmatic among your friend group would have predicted, if said friend group were to actually exist)

So when you’re out there flagging down ideas, just remember one or two of these techniques and your creativity will flourish because of it!

Stubborn One

Petrification process, present yourself!

Not yet, eh? Why not?
Not talking, eh? Stubborn one, aren’t we?

Well, if you won’t talk, then I’ll just have to be the one to break the ice.

Once upon a time, a fly buzzed around from place to place. Its favorite place to land was upon the top spike of a stegosaurus’ back. Didn’t matter which particular specimen, as long as the spike was at the highest point of the animal.

It may seem odd that I’m mentioning a fly’s perching preference, but by the time I’m done explaining why, you will have–at the very least–a beginner’s understanding as to how futile our existence proves to be over the course of time.

I have now finished my explanation, in case you weren’t aware.