Poetry – Page 23

Ne’er-Do-Well

Meticulous electricians developed this lovely method for measuring their professionalism by throwing oil-soaked towels out of their respective windows at variable rates, unbeknownst to their long-suffering mothers and clergymen.

Once upon a time, our heroes of stage and craft built an anomaly that would mortify the ne’er-do-well karma wankers until no measure of cigar-stoppage could unravel our collective albatross leanings (as uncharted as it would seem to any non-intellectual types out there), and we sorely apologize for any bruised egos.

Ether assists in the quarantining of hostile entities, it sure does. If we hadn’t discovered this inexplicable gassy juice thing, we still would have been muddling along in Tommy’s sauna, insisting that no level of gallantry or goofus-ery could upend our preconceived notion of how to get down when faced with a horde of potbelly pigs. Now, potbelly stoves I could handle. They tend not to move for years on end. I could easily prepare for a stove rebellion. But pigs? No way in hell, my hypothetical friend.

Mile a Minute

Tainted ivory beats the scoundrel flagon,
peregrine cheaters flocking
to those most savory passes,
wafted there
upon the sea’s rippling intentions
that (as of May 14, 2013 and October 9, 2016)
match the price of a bodega avocado–
and for what?
One pound of lighter fluid (yes, measured dry).
No scale available? Substitute
a week’s worth of third grade valentine cards
(read at the rate of roughly one mile a minute).

Significance assured,
we must set our sights on the next horizon,
where our assertions flourish,
undeterred by argument and bolstered
by the chaos of existence (or
existence of chaos, whichever floats your boat).

A rainy day soiled the arid week,
flash flooding the earth’s
hard-earned cracks (as though
temperamental life’s perpetuation
were the goal here).

Kicking Around

A shrewd entrepreneur would–should–do anything in their power to corner the intuitive market of scarcity designed for the particular demographic concerned with–for example–how many hands reside on their watch face. Two is the bare minimum, three is optimal, four is impractical and irresponsible.

Along with this peculiar and pragmatic market segment, several other significant archetypes are not to be left behind (popular categories are conveniently located in your handbooks for perusal at your leisure). As their respective facets are revealed, it will invariably be identified that many of these have indeed been kicking around since the dawn of history, let alone the beginning of the free market economy.

When pressed to demonstrate our knowledge of these groups, exercising our right to dissect this polarizing slice of modernity, we must admit to ourselves that stereotyping can be dangerous if taken as truth. All of a sudden our watch-hand-obsessive type takes on a bit more humanity. Did you know that a noticeable amount of people within the watch-hand-obsessive grouping prefer their toasts unbuttered, substituting a liberal helping of sliced avocado? The algorithms never lie.

Recall

Artie told me one day something about the importance of swallowing twice to signal yes for some particular mission. I lost everything after that, my money, my mind, my family, essentially all articles of existence worth living for (I’ve been told), but I know that a person named Artie told me one day about swallowing twice, some thing lodged in his arm when he was saying it. I couldn’t figure out why he was telling me something about swallowing when some thing was just jutting out of his arm. But then the world went black and I came to–

a different person, where all I knew was that Artie told me something about swallowing while his left arm was being attacked by a pointy fish of some kind as he tried to swim away to safety, and I couldn’t understand why he would be telling me something about swallowing while fleeing for his life. Was I swimming? I can’t remember, because the next thing I knew, everything went black. I woke up to the knowledge of only Artie. Or was it Archie? No, definitely Artie. He had a rifle pointed at me, resting it on his forearm like one of those old black and white cowboys. Told me something about swallowing twice to make it all stop, my mission from God? Mission from something, I can’t remember because everything went black and I awoke–

Archie was sitting in a temple as I watched from my bed. He was somber, very intentional with his movements, as I could always recall.

Crux

Feel free to experience the soul’s consciousness for as long as you can possibly bear it; don’t make excuses to avoid or replace it with cheap thrills designed to siphon thought into a tawdry funnel of spent emotion. You’re better than that, Deandre. I’ve known you since you were a budding young talent. Don’t get me wrong, I’m your biggest fan. I can only imagine the potential you hold in your incisors and between five to ten fingers, depending on your level of ambidextrousness. Do not fret! Fretting will get you absolutely nowhere. I’m saying no man’s land, ya dig? Many people have been in your position plenty of times in recorded history, and the issue lies in their penchant to alienate themselves until their perception of life comes from an internal gyration that’s out of tune with the common perception of just what it is that seems to make life so special in the first place. If you can answer me why it is that life is at all special (with a nod to my unflappable inner cynic, mind you), I will reward you with the knowledge that comes along with the essence that could be construed as the crux of Johnny Cash’s “A Satisfied Mind”. Just listen to good music, dear, and don’t worry about forming your own tastes and possibly offending others with your assertion of the importance of personal expression.

Are you going to eat that applesauce?

Spitballing

I may be a temperamental weirdo, but at least I don’t refuse to bathe for fear of shortening my lifespan. I don’t profess to have an alter ego, and I most certainly don’t carry a blank-loaded revolver with me to scare off adoring fans. Then again, I don’t need to worry about fanatical admirers breaking down my door to get an autograph (or even just a good look at me), so perhaps I’m taking my relative anonymity for granted here. In my heart of hearts, I suppose I’d like to achieve at least a modicum of notability for my extended creative efforts, but if that daydream actually came to fruition, I’d need to come up with a nutty character quirk to demonstrate to the masses that I’m a one-of-a-kind talent. I don’t know, I’m just spitballing here, but maybe I could carry a straw and small scraps of easily-moistenable paper with me, to ward off rabid devourers of my work. I could develop the habit of high-pitched yelping, you know, to emulate the sound of a wounded woodland mammal. Or I could carry around a “pet” with me that I talk to all the time, like a bottle cap or wooden bowl. All of those ideas are crap, I know, but if I hit on a good one, I’m pretty much guaranteed to go down in history as one of those “oddball eccentrics” that the normies can have fun chuckling about at their potluck dinners.

First Things First

Nobody will tell you that religion is simply an iteration of our innate human ability to question and ascribe meaning to the phenomena we encounter in our immediate surroundings. Being able to alter our environment with the level of skill we’ve come to develop over the past few millennia, how many of us ever stop to wonder about the first moment our species graduated from nature’s master class in manipulation? Let’s not forget, we were once as defenseless as all the other beings to inhabit this planet, but we took great measures to ensure survival at all costs, to the chagrin of the very globe that fostered our greedy development.

Now here we are, coughing up smog and trying to figure out how best to colonize our moon (Mars is still a pipe dream). Hopefully we can find a way to bring our religion to other regions of our solar system, and perhaps even to the rest of the universe. As chosen (not brainwashed) people of God (not a fictional authority figure fabricated to alleviate the guilt that forms when we commit genocide and snatch unsuspecting people’s land), it is our divine duty to carry out HIS WORD. The wool has been removed from over our eyes (with the rug soon to be pulled out from under our feet), and there’s a whole universe of sinners who need the salvation of the LORD!

Now first things first, does anybody here know how to build a rocket ship?