conversational – Page 14

Trivial Matters

As midlevel leisure enthusiasts,
we have always preferred
sipping
iced tea
on only the loveliest of summer days–
is that a stale interpretation?

Because, truth be told,
we could be the bandwagon kind of folk
who only drink iced tea
on the sun porch
in otherwise scorching conditions,
our enclosed little patio-area the only respite
when a cross-breeze comes rolling through.

No, I’m talking
temperate conditions
where you could really take it or leave it
(as far as a cool beverage is concerned).
It would even be bordering on the cusp of preferring
a lukewarm or even full-on warm beverage
if we were on the more neutral end of temperature concerns.

That’s not what I’m talking about here.
It’s crucial that you understand
my delicate position on this matter.

It’s usually not long after positing such a polarizing statement that I would be rebuffed with counter arguments stating the absurdity of equating a particular kind of climate/weather condition with the kind of beverage preferred during said time, at which time I would widely rebuke the person/s responsible for the indignation. What kind of boring life must you be leading if you have nothing better to do than debate someone over the importance, nay, relevance, of climate and beverage temperature comparison?!

I tend to get heated over trivial matters.
You got a problem with that?

Absurdity Is Rampant

Absurdity is rampant, all you jelly bean mongers out there (and aspiring monger-types who just haven’t caught your big break yet (it’s coming, trust me))!

The point here is the absurdity of even doing anything at all, let alone to the point where we can press our most sacred thoughts into lasting pellets of intuition and wildly disseminate them–in perpetuity–across the universe.

Effort would be considered the lion’s share of the process; it’s not the transcendence of this field of shapes and arbitrary sets of value, no, how could it be? For we are but simple field mice, content to labor our way through all hours of the day, afraid to look up or take pause.

Fear of the finite, the decay, the ruination of our children within, we clutch to anything resembling the womb.

But to state these maladies is only to bring attention back to that stale old paradigm, failing to uplift, only presenting symptoms of the perpetual problems while offering no solutions. What are we to do? Dive into some kind of fantastic phantasmagorical wonderscape?

Gretchen Ann simply needed to demonstrate the breadth of her innate yodeling abilities. Never once a formal student of the craft, her superb tonality and unapologetic virtuosity always brought her audience–usually herself–to the verge of emotional breakdown.

Screaming with Imperfections

Silversmiths just don’t smithy things quite the same way these days, and I can’t put my finger on why (aside from the obvious lack of a need for hand-hammered silver pieces screaming with imperfections). If I’m being perfectly frank with you, I’m unsure as to how this topic was broached in the first place; don’t machines do all of that work nowadays anyways? The only consistent demand for old-school silversmiths seems to be mostly coming from vintage retailers and collectors in the market for replicas of historical pieces–oh, and Renaissance faires, o’ course.

Now go and do your homework before I change my mind about letting you watch the Dracula movie marathon with me after dinner.

This Disregarding Chagrin

It would appear as though I’m getting somewhat flummoxed at the disregarding chagrin our elders heap upon us one at a time by the out-turned burlap sackful as we billowing travelers have nothing better to do than adjust our expectations and run with the idiocy. Lack of a better option? More likely a surplus of crippling anxiety and sneaking suspicion that this generation is going to die out soon enough anyway, so why engage with them at all when we could be pursuing our own noble causes and callings?

Oh,
so you’re saying that they’ve been indoctrinating their families and offspring into the cult of reaction, that distinct line of cash grabs formed out of boredom and greed by the people just smart enough to get how the whole system works but also evil enough to profit unscrupulously from it?

Gotcha.
So I can’t just sit back and tend my garden of unconcern? Friggin’ bummer, man.

Lap Scraps

Within our stricken, conflicted
human psyches
lies the power to change our circuitry or
ignore the idea
that anything could be amiss.
We are not tragic figures all,
how could we be? Well see,
there’s the rub.
We all come from tragedy
to beget tragedies of our own.
We must avert travesty
while negotiating the roiling tragedies
unique to each of us.

On that note, I went back to the well
to replenish my joy and wonder
for words and their ability
to impact our immediate universes.

*–*–*

Read a passage about red shoes
and you probably won’t be surprised
to find that a lot of people walking about
are donning red shoes.

*–*–*

Now the plan (to be quickly rendered
irrelevant if all goes well) is to encounter
the skeletal fragments of op-ed pieces
concerning the phenomenon of right-shoulder
organ grinder monkey-carrying–
notes just lying around in various
unexpected filing cabinets, I’d assume–
to cobble together a feel-good article
revolving around the presence of that
ages-old parable wherein a matchbox-sized
chubby-cheeked angel proffers ethical advice
(of course, while also embodying
the epitome of baroque cuteness).

Look at that capuchin monkey’s little face,
so expressive!
Just like a tiny person
begging for table scraps–
lap scraps at a picnic–
while they dart their eyes
and appear to be narrowly averting collision
with numerous invisible entities
at a rate of about thirty ducks per minute.

What the Why I Oughtta

I’m going for broad strokes here, don’t need no fancy-ass sophisti-ma-cated doohickey telling me why not or what for (what the why I oughtta).

Forget about all that untrustworthy noise being split and spattered as hats drop all across this great nation of ours. Am I a politician? No, I’m the version of that public servant who couldn’t be arsed into devoting so much time to such fruitless labor, only to end up making most people I know either hate or envy me just based on what I picked as my moneymaking methodology.

No, I’m a free-range consultant. No cages involved in the creation of my livelihood, I just move from place to place with a pen in hand (and hopefully some form of paper), keenly aware of my place within the echelon of idealists who couldn’t just sit by while creative liberties were being stripped away left and right through the illusion of choice that’s being perpetuated by the umpteen media concerns who mainly just seek that bottom dollar, any progress to be made coming in secondary as long as the people responsible for the immense success of these moneymaking machines are satisfied with the level of financial wherewithal gained through their various transactions aimed at creating a consumerist welfare state.

People, mostly, seem to have lost the innate ability to make something from scratch and take pride in it. Well, that’s not entirely true. People find their various outlets for pent-up creative energy, many times leading to unwanted pregnancy–or wanted, you never know. So having incredible sex, cooking a delicious meal, taking in a provocative documentary–you get the picture–are all lovely pastimes, but rarely do they get to the heart of the issue that pokes and prods us through every threshold of our very finite lives: what can I do as an individual that can be considered mine and mine alone? Sure, I make an excellent lasagna and fuck like the wind, but there just has to be more to this whole dog and pony show we all find ourselves swimming through (even though there was no prior mention of any aquatic activity whatsoever and we’re all stuck here looking like fools while we contemplate whether to strip naked, down to our skivvies, or just jump in, shoes and all).

When I was confronted with the infinite above-ground swimming pool of “reality”, I did my damnedest to avoid even dipping my toe in the water. I was and always have been a perpetual procrastinator and particular perfectionist, and I’ve learned to adjust expectations and accept when situations are out of my control. All well and good, you say, until I mention that the other 90% of all scenarios I’ve encountered have come as a result of the anxiety regarding my personal development and negotiation of this absurd pool metaphor that is becoming more and more apt the more I’m thinking about it.

I used to be perfectly content to drive headfirst into that pool for OTHER people, but when the time would invariably come to jump in there for my best interests, I would always shy away and make excuse after excuse, up to the point where just the act of making excuses became so humdrum that I didn’t even bother telling myself those convenient little mistruths. I would typically still be able to string those thoughts together, in order to satisfy questions by concerned parties (or nosy neighbors), but I’d run out of the energy to pretend to delude myself, because the only person I’d succeeded at confusing was ME!

And now none of that even matters anyway. I’m fixing to move to Albuquerque and start up a tombstone business, a good ol’ brick and mortar joint. That’ll teach ’em.

One Fine Day

There’s something so sublime
about observing and admiring
an intriguing-yet-mundane object in space
that has never failed
to lend credence to that ages-old belief,
often eloquently-stated as the following:

beauty, that relatively universal indicator of aesthetic appeal, is more or less subjective depending upon the perception of the individual/s observing the particular object or phenomenon in question.

Why, I was gazing one fine day–
surveying the park of common human consequence
(observable to very few by the naked eye)–
when my eyes rested upon a preponderance
of turtledove squadron trainers,
and as they went about their daily regimented activities,

I looked deeply into the pools of their eyes

while they continually exhibited
the inability to break out of the checkboxes
they’d been forced to occupy through one coup or another
somewhere along the line as young (or at least, younger)
men with a passion for doing things a different way
than all those other pencil-pushing types
who would be quick to declare their allegiance
to the guild of orderliness (or brotherhood
of smug rule-abiding, and also occasionally
the bean counters collective, depending on who you ask).

Not a woman in the bunch. I chalked that up
as the fairer sex’s natural disinclination toward
imposing human rules upon flighted creatures
with the ultimate goal of turning a profit.
That’s at least
what every woman I’ve ever known
has told me about the situation.