Skips – WHARVED

We are the TOXIC Group:

Tastemakers
Obligating
Xylophones
Into
Conversation

Our meetings typically consist of 30 seconds of clever xylophone-related banter followed by 48 minutes of unbroken claptrappery (occasionally punctuated by a sneeze or self-important cough that reminds folks in the group of their own flimsy mortality). The list of covered topics is indeed long and tedious; an indeterminate amount of talking points is covered multiple–sometimes numerous–times, with very little ceremony.

The talking points typically meander around with little consequence, and our staffers have learned to endure them long enough to get to the meat of the meeting: attempting to reach a quorum on where to go for pizza afterwards. There’s been a glut of new “artisanal” pizza joints in the area, not to mention the existing restaurants who need gimmicks to keep up.

Gino’s Northeast: an old school pizzeria with a hint of sports bar (now with 25% more sass back)
Donnie’s Bunker: war hero’s spot with authentic Vietnam War memorabilia
Skip’s Dugout: retired baseball star’s spot with authentic ’60s and ’70s memorabilia
Gugliotti’s: Sicilian-themed ristorante
Chunkster’s: Most Toppings Around!®
Steggo’s Dino-mite Pizza: self-explanatory
Jeffrey’s Tamborine: adults-only gaming and entertainment-related eatery (wine allowed in the ball pit)

This particular installment of the TOXIC Group (#373) eventually ended with a near-unanimous selection of kofta kebab, since there’s only one local option for that cuisine and we were rapidly running out of time. For the record, a good portion of the group rallied for the adult play place, but Susie’s new around these parts, and we want her to stick around for a month or two before we test her patience with a drunken happy hour.

The biggest, most poignant pen
writes the antithesis of the expected,
the unadmired,
the people with lives expressed
as a

religious
or
spiritual
experience, embarked upon

out of necessity
to insulate from the severe
segregation
and
disintegration
of a marginalized people

that
fucked up our entire species,
ethically and genetically.

***

Speaking truth is necessary;
we can’t worry about
transcending race or gender,
there is only
a singular consciousness,
lived at all moments of our lives.
We are merely its witnesses.

Thank you for sharing
your visions of truth
and illuminating my perception.
You are my teacher, my ally,
my person of interest.

***

Don’t we all take for granted
the stag’s leaps or the hyena’s skips
as perpetual representations of a group
that denigrates the works of mankind?

Too many toads take too much time
to throw titillated molotov cocktails
betwixt the orthogenetic felons
of our once-forgotten past,
whistled between a shar-o-ise
and a heart.

The chamber solvent
has a triumphant shield
quite unlike the present-minded
earth warbler, unmade
as a man of science and marked
as a man of knowledge
in the community that really matters–
the one that brings us
to a crater of conscience
that may easily be sustained
if pursued in earnest.