A pretty verse is all you ever wanted, you say. Pretty. Pretty dull. What does it challenge? What does it make you think? Why does the rhyme scheme have significance?
Does it look forward to recounting the past as the present sees it?
If it’s a vacuum, a glass jar preserving cute language like a vat of liquid nitrogen poured on a rose, you’re in the wrong place.
I am well-versed in the perpetuation of this filth, this inexorable dust clinging to the shelf life of an English Writing grad in limbo between academic fulfillment and the beatdown waiting for him in the dank corners of the business world.
Stopped up, my ideas are stocked up on a shelf too high to reach. I need to stand on an eight-foot ladder, past the warning line and on tip toes, only three fiberglass legs planted firmly on the tile. If I get greedy and load up with solutions, I fall. If I leave well enough alone and creep back down the ladder, I feel like shit.
P: For what it’s worth, I think you would make a lovely sheriff, deputy.
B: I believe that myself. But this old man over here won’t rest until he’s in his grave.
R: Quit complainin’. You got a pension, don’t ya? That’s all a man needs.
P: So you’re saying that dedication to your job only represents a dollar figure?
R: Not mine, his.
B: What do you take me for? I spend long hours putting up with your shit for a paycheck? Maybe you’re right. I quit.
Can you wait just a minute?
I have to sprain my ankle
before the swimming coach finds out
I had fake school spirit in the tryout.
I really don’t give a damn if
the Bobcats win or lose, we’re
all a bunch of wet cats anyway.
Sure, I can swim. Better than the rest
of those paddling clowns. I’ll be out
at the lake if I really want to enjoy my time
in the water. Medals don’t float.
Butter up those onions.
You think flavor sticks
to your ribs without it?
I’ve cooked for ten thousand men
at once, four days a week.
You can’t tell me I don’t know
how to handle my kitchen.
I was flipping pancakes
before your daddy even gave up
his action figures, sport.
Filled with the spirit of anticipated emotion and wrought
from the steel of our enchanted brethren, we collapse
before the final charade ever takes the stage.
So why do we care? Do we have a stake in the matter?
Are we rushing around for good reason, or are we
concluding too early that life is a challenge
to be conquered, beaten into submission?
Can’t we savor it just for a minute?
A minute is all I ask.
WHARVED 