attention – WHARVED

Anyhow

The gratitude of my temporary inmates seems only to ring truer with each passing circumstance. I suppose I may have acquired a skill or two over the years where it pertains to the custodial caretaking that so many in this throwaway culture would prefer to ignore.

It’s not Stockholm Syndrome that these folks have come down with, since I’m not the one responsible for my subjects’ captivity, but it is definitely a similar phenomenon (a guy sure could get used to all the attention, anyhow). My wards do actually receive that kind of no-strings care that the medical insurance industry forgot about as soon as private concerns got their hooks into it (even though their advertising tries to sell a different story).

Perhaps because of this comfort, every single one of our emerging beer-krausening technologies has been behind schedule under my watch. Maybe it was a mistake to combine a halfway house with a chemistry lab. Our three chemists-in-captivity are functioning alcoholics who just use this particular project to get tanked on the job all day–with my tacit blessing, I suppose. Last Thursday, Ernie–the least-tactful of the three–decided to not look both ways before crossing the street on his lunch break (I do give them at least a little time in each week to get out and smell the flowers). Long story short, Ernie got hit by a shipment of cabbages (with a truck attached), survived, and is now suing the city for not putting a stop sign in a 40 MPH zone. As soon as he got back from the hospital, you’d better believe I gave him quite the lecture on roadside awareness!

Cakemakers

Gateway drugs and experiences have no bearing on our ralphymeters today or any other day (as far as we know), though I’m going to need you to disengage in trivial pursuits for long enough get a read on just why it is that cakemakers hold no stations below law-enforcement.

The answer is easy enough to reach, you simply need to focus your attentions where they can really do some investigative good.

All right, I’ll have to just tell you then, if that’s going to be your attitude.

When you strip it all bare, the contemporary American cakemaker is commonly behooved to fabricate goods for the purpose of selling them at the market. Law-enforcers make it their business to interrupt people’s activities and impose limitations upon them, resulting in a streak of pride and occasional lawlessness. Paid to uphold the law, they often embody the viewpoint that certain laws don’t apply to them, sometimes culminating in displays of pseudo-authority that end up with dead people on their hands (or at least as a result of their handiwork).

Cakemakers just have to crack a few eggs.

Thanks, Dad

“Parallel entities befit madness, my son.

“You should never turn your back on those other dimensions our forward-thinking predecessors have been touting for some time now, or your attention will lose its cosmic importance, the aggregate of local souls gradually easing you out of their observational patterns–though it’s the last thing they would do if given the choice.

“While you are charged with keeping your attention beyond the present actions contained within our visible plane, you mustn’t let the responsibility weigh on your consciousness too much; although you know everything is simply an illusion, you are an integral part of the chain of illusions keeping our earthly consciousness afloat.

“When you shudder, know the implications. When two birds meet on a wire and appear to converse, understand that their dialogue fits into our space on a level wholly undisturbed by our own idea of language. No need to fret over payment, my first lesson is always free.”

“Thanks, dad.”

——

First draft posted on 10/12/11,
originally entitled #40

LXXIV

Everything smells like gasoline around here. More accurately, everything smells like a combination of gasoline and tamarind. More accurately, everything smells like gasoline, tamarind and week-old kitchen sponge. More accurate yet, everything smells like gasoline, tamarind, week-old kitchen sponge and Sunday newspapers. You know what? Everything smells exactly the same to me anyway, so all I do is come up with intriguing combinations of objects that I believe may smell like the one melange of odors I’m constantly whiffing. I apologize for taking up so much of your time, good sir–it may never happen again.

Just for the Moment

Total responsibility is not for the scrutinized person to fear, or anyone else for that matter. Now that I have your attention, I’ll take a mosquito from the top shelf and borrow a set of raisin blades for the moment, just for the moment. Now we get some work done, and we go everywhere that needs a bolted spit of broccoli or two, not always usual or indeed even warranted.

Attention Hogs

Twittering smitters
done tapped out
onto my tarmac

while I had
the marbles cooling
and the pink daffodils
yearning for something
like the Sun (though
the Moon would
have to suffice).

They’re just sitting there
like a bunch of lawn
ornaments, like I’m supposed
to gawp at them and guffaw
in awe. You can forget it,

I won’t even
let them know
that I know
they’re here.
Attention hogs.

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