Muse

When the Muse
presents herself to you
as fully and openly as any artist
could have ever possibly hoped
throughout human history,
all one may do is thank her
for taking the time to schedule a visit.

Her glory is unmatched when it comes to graciousness and humility; she shares no physical boundary with the human system we’ve come to regard as the established norm for what we’re supposed to embody as advanced beings on a planet where the other most-advanced large-brained mammals still “talk” in the form of growls or roars or yips or screams or ticks or pretty much any form of communication not considered oral language on par with what we use in our daily lives (let alone the kind of language a doctor or Spanish teacher needs to decode on a regular basis).

Advertisement

Charmishness

Charmishness has its own splendiferous
nature, unbeknownst to the easiest of
all the catchers in their respective ryes,
earnest though they may be.

Feathery nothingness strategizes with the
foremost Giza wranglers on their paydays.
Sometimes what a conservative observer
would call an extraordinary happenstance
is just the thing needed to grant a certain
amount of leeway for hair-brained ventures
(profitable or otherwise).

Chalk it up to another one on the rack,
or just another one taking its sweet time
as the patsy for an unholy ponzi scheme
that would otherwise have fizzled out
were it not for the conviction and stupidity
of the general population of this here planet.

But here’s the thing: people will always be people,
and there’s nothing to be done about it now
or any other time (as far as I can tell).
So all you can do is be kind and understand
that folks just naturally have shortcomings
on a severely regular basis, and
if you can’t get that through your skull,
you’re bound to lose all faith. No biggie.

Pinned

Jim Olivo left a note behind for me
many summer camps ago–pinned
to a pine–that reads:

“If you want the recipe for that turkey sandwich from mess hall, you’ll have to pry it from the clutches of none other than Neander The Articulate. Born with almost-exclusively neanderthal blood, his scrawniness prevented him from competing with his peers on a physical level, leaving him alone with his thoughts on a regular basis. Over the years, this ostracized fella developed a peculiarly sharp wit, mainly due to his constant observation of the individuals he would have considered his peers (if they would ever let him). Little by little he started sneaking tiny esoteric quips in edgewise–mainly in passing–that befuddled the muscly alphas and intrigued the blossoming females.”

It goes on like that
for a couple more pages.
I think Jim was working out
some kind of material on me,
because I couldn’t ever find
a turkey sandwich recipe
or a local neanderthal
for the life of me.
Maybe he was talking about
the camp across the lake.

Second Thought

Relative anger need not dominate discourse
for at least another half a millennium.
Such vitriol achieves nothing
other than misunderstandings and bloodshed.
We don’t need that contrariness in our lives
on any kind of basis, let alone a consistent one.

Give it a second thought and then toss it
out the window, because that’s the last time
it’ll ever be addressed. You can
mark my words on that, or my name isn’t
Phineas Q. Arlingfestration Gimbleblotz III.
And even if that isn’t actually my name,
do you really need some stranger’s endorsement
as justification for being a decent human?

May god have mercy on us all.

Breach of Conduct

A walloping armpit extension cord signals a breach of conduct between extended penguin locker scenes. Meanwhile, a trailer of sloppy prejudice leans between a cross-country ski and the entrance to a long-abandoned silver mine, incapable of bettering its situation among the shapes of molten stoicism openly exhibiting themselves through displays deployed by wriggling strings undetectable to most, save the above average marsupial intellect.

Those beings who matter most to the incorporated inhabitance cannot comprehend the visual acumen of a kangaroo or wallaby due to the shoddy basis for communication between mammalian classmates, but certain attributes must be understood for the sake of all terrestrial life.

——

First draft posted on 11/15/11,
originally entitled #72

Wharf

Drinking all the coffee in the world still won’t keep me from passing out like a yellow-bellied stooge wielding a catcher’s mitt much too oversized for his gimpy left hand. Why a catcher’s mitt? Perhaps to shield from the harsh realities of 21st Century American living, or to comment on the perpetual competition bred into our species as though any other way were simply infeasible. Further introspection reveals that this set of details has no basis in literary circles, not unlike a diving Oscar wrangler tethered to a tugboat moored to a wharf comprised of 93% recycled mosquito netting. For the purposes of this exercise, the other 7% shall remain unexplored.

%d bloggers like this: