Poet on a Laptop in a Coffeeshop

So here’s what’s going to happen now. There sits a person to my left whom I believe is comparing their outward appearance and behavior to me at this moment, I’m not sure why. It’s quite possible that I have heinously misdiagnosed the situation, and this individual doesn’t give a second shit–let alone a first–about it. Honestly, I still haven’t even looked over at them, which I’m assuming they would interpret as strange.

If I were more swept up
by those weird social ticks
displayed on a regular basis
by our average arena-dwellers,
I may have already regarded this person
in some shape or form, but I flat out
just don’t care an ounce.

Now what does that make me? Am I some kind of hypocrite, expecting people to be attracted to my persona/aura and then rejecting them as soon as the convenience and luster of their adoration wears off? Jeez, that sounds pretty brutal. I’m just going to work off of the assumption that these folks are a little needier than the average bear, and they’re working out their emotional stuff on perfect strangers.

After all, those random
Jake and Jackie Terwilligers out there
are the ultimate barometers of who we are
in a social context, no?

Inherent Value

Poet: I got a steal of a deal on turkey today! I’m unreasonably happy right now.

Accountant: So… why’s that? It’s just turkey.

P: Well, someone dropped one of those shrink-wrapped breasts on the floor, and it had already been opened, so their policy was that they had to toss it.

A: Let me guess, you–

P: Yup, got it for free! Gino was working behind the counter today and came out back on his break to “dispose of it,” i.e. let his buddy have an ample supply of salty fowl meat.”

A: Gross.

P: I didn’t see it fall, but Gino said it got picked up in about a second, and the floor was pretty clean at the time.

A: Pretty clean?

P: Come on dude, I get floor food all the time and yet never get sick. Coincidence? I think not.

A: Well… you might be onto something there, but you’ll have to walk that tightrope without me.

P: How very cryptic, yet obvious. Did you think I was going to try to share this miraculous bird boob with you? Fat chance, señorita.

A: Señorita?

P: Yeah, I’ve been starting to call white cisgender males señorita lately, to get them to question their binary perception of sexual and social roles (unless they already think about these things, in which case they’re cool with it anyway).

A: Good to know.

P: Back to the point at hand: you were insinuating that it’s only a matter of time before I ingest a floorbound grape and contract some horrific illness. Sometimes I wonder why it is that you actively root for my destruction.

A: Geez! Where did you get all that from?

P: Tonality, body language, eye movement, the usual.

A: Well it’s not true, dude! You really take things too far sometimes.

P: Yeah, whatever. That’s what they all say. All those… “people.”

A: People, sheeple, I know where this rant is going.

P: Fine, then let me localize my argument to this room and the mind straddling the body in my vicinity at the moment. I have been observing for some time that you repress your instinctual side, and the passive-aggressive comments you make on a fairly regular basis are vessels for your packing-up of creative frustration. You lob them–like grapefruits–right down the pipe and I hit tape-measure blasts from time to time, depending on my energy level at the particular moment of said pitch. My diagnosis: Boredom-itis. Prescription: Weed and painting classes.

A: Ooh, ow. Oh yeah, you really pegged me, you bedraggled son of a gun, you.

P: Glad you at least acknowledged it this time.

Tarmac 2

Laugh at the endeavors of a poet. They’re too idealized, infantile, idiotic, idiosyncratic to be real and applicable in our modern society of vast civilization and designed scarcity (not to mention obsolescence). A word will change with its people, a poet will laugh at those people in a different language.

Laughing through words proves difficult most times, unless a kindred spirit laughs along at the farce that was invented when the ones who held all the wealth decided that distributing these valued materials across hordes of commoners would immortalize the innovators of the shackling system; those benevolent givers still have their faces on dirty coins today, unseeing and ignorant to the ridicule they’ve imposed upon their children.