Razzle-Dazzle

Tree inhabitants incorporate pidgin into their daily doings, dramatically increasing exchange-related transaction speeds while reducing neighborly kerfuffles.

Friend–can I call you friend? Friend, I have no business prognosticating, much less evangelizing. However, I do need to get something off my chest: fleas appear to have invaded my scalp’s furniture collection. Odd how they went straight for the chifforobe, bypassing the genuine marble vanity. I was sure to have gone the rest of my life without incident, had it not been for those meddling bugs.

At this point along my personal story arc, scratching itches has become so excruciatingly routine. I’m bored to tears here! Perhaps suspending my dignity and scratching bare skin on a nearby oak will infuse my existence with a tad more razzle-dazzle. At the very least, I’ll have a fashionable anecdote for my monologue at the Antelopes gathering on Thursday.

Hm, it would appear as though the squirrels and sparrows have reneged on their linguistic compromise. Shut the hell up, will ya? I’m tryin’ to scratch my ass on this here tree! Jeez… bunch of animals.

Plane

Well, what can we really do
at the end of the day,
aside from stapling our sorry sacks
to a sphincter of solidarity?

Ooh, that’s nasty. I shouldn’t be
unleashing such filth when
children
possessing such youth
are within earshot. I remember–
back when I was a child–when
that kind of filter just wasn’t
present in my mind’s eye.

I indeed regret that I didn’t
have the temerity to tell folks
(and, indeed, even my parents)
how their off-color language
off-put me. Every damn,
dang and darn chopped into me
like a rusty old hatchet–and
let’s not even mention
those other four-letter doozies.
But those were different times;
I was 23 then.
I’m 27 now, and my perspective
has matured magnificently.

What changed, you ask? Something
about my regular reading of
horoscopes and astrological charts
allowed me to unpack
my cognitive dissonances, yet
left me wanting more
from the universe and the planets
and the alignments and the
what have you. Is it all there
as a way of making us feel
more comfortable not knowing
the grand scheme of things,
a la benevolent overlords?

I reckon if we can’t truly see
the full picture, we might as well
get as large-scale
as we possibly can
while affixing as much
mathematical logic to it,
keeping in mind that everything
is more likely than not
an amalgamation of chaotic particles
flinging themselves at one another
at variable rates, and we’re
the unnecessary end result.

See, these are the kinds of thoughts
that can be had without
such a potty mouth! Now, if only
our president
could understand that, we’d be
in much better shape. But
you know what? I’ll leave
that speculation to the birds.
What kind of birds, you ask?
Gee willikers, I don’t know!
You pick one! I guess
I’m partial to crows
at the moment,
though I do like them egrets
and fincher-pinchers.

Okay, you got me, fincher-pinchers
aren’t actually animals—
that we know!

Well, at least in this plane.
There are no fictional
passerine passengers
allowed on flight #38674-012
to Fallas-Dwort Earth.
Truly.

Tempered — Pre-Primaries, 2016

Tempered by the blunt end
of a stainless steak knife,
throttled by a lack of anything
interesting to say–

say, how’s that weather?

Primary’s coming up,
don’t trust any of those clowns;
the whole system’s downright screwy anyway.
Can’t get behind those corporations
parading around as individuals,
CEOs making their dirty millions.

Can’t keep up this smalltalk,
I just want to scream
unintelligibly
at those crows hopping
over there. Who told them
they could have fun
while I’m around?

I can’t stand it
when others enjoy themselves,
especially animals. I can’t
tell them off
like I can a human, not that
I make it my business
to harass people.
The closest I’d ever get
would be a stoic monologue
about the nature of the universe
and its tendency to dissolve
into nothingness
without a moment’s notice.

I can make many a soul
uneasy
with that shrapnel language,
if you can believe it.

Stumble

Indelible delicacies span the desert, as odd as it may seem to the never-ending line of gawkers establishing covenants left and right of that played-out Manson-Nixon phenomenon all you kids seem to take for granted these days. But never you mind such a clustered old sight, it won’t tuck you in at night even if you begged for a thousand years. But why would you insist on that kind of security? What are you, seven years old? The desert holds not much more than the limited flora and fauna you’ve come to admire (once the childish fantasies of fecund fields have worn off), unless you’re keen on uncovering the mystical rarities romanticized by travelers who’ve uncovered a sacred place amongst the oblivion any sensible person would surely avoid–if given the chance. That’s why I always say: drop those thoughtful suckers in the middle of the Mojave and watch them stumble upon God.

Tarmac 3

Make up situations and watch them fester in corners where little Billy dumped his dead frog last summer and Jill took that old spoiled yogurt and threw it in disgust and it splattered on her face and got in her eye and she began to cry–not because she had stinging culture in her cornea, but because her dad left the house that night and didn’t come back. It wasn’t his fault, the F-150 behind him was going 50 in a 35 and turned around to look at the girl with her chest touching her neck just long enough to fly out the windshield as he connected with the trunk of a midsize sedan which in turn lost its bearing and hit a light pole, taking out the left side in the snap of a finger.