Surreal – WHARVED

Yes, And

Improvisation without representation is definitely authorized in this club, though I don’t quite know how it’s supposed to be accomplished (at least without some corporeal manifestation hanging around on this mechanical rotating clothes rack we call the universe).

First off, you’re supposed to “yes, and” the opposition into submission as often as possible, which typically would require a physical body in space and time. However, perhaps a physical body needn’t be required if we piped a nice [tinny] audio stream into the room as the live interaction winds itself down.

But that all goes without stating the obvious: if the instigator of improvisational inquiry has no chunky terrestrial body of which to speak, then why should the foil of the piece remain a solid entity? That just puts the burden on them, don’t you see? Having all of those internal organs thinly covered by what’s basically just a fleshy layer of napkins (and not the two-ply kind)… it’s dangerous! I won’t stand for reckless endangerment in the name of creativity.

O Splendid One

Pierogi sentience
will cost you more
than just a roll of nickels,
o splendid one.

Gregory Poke

A tortoise–let’s call it Gregory Poke–
peeps its head out from inside its shell
in an effort to feel alive,
truly alive, for the first time in weeks
(maybe months).

Gregory doesn’t quite know what to do next.
There are no predators to be seen
for hundreds of yards in every direction. Wait,
there are no predators here. How many times
does Greg have to remind itself of that?

And will it ever get over the affliction
of constantly referring to itself
in the third person? The answer may never arrive,
as this writer can only use 100 words. Howev–

To and Fro

Suppose you start stammering
at these shimmering jewels
on your nightstand, as though
you’ve established some
sort of language connection
in the realm of Greater Jewelese.

You do innately understand
that jewels possess no mental capacities,
but that seems only to fuel your curiosity
as you divulge your deepest secrets
to their faceted surfaces

(eg. the state
of your psyche, regardless of stymying
ethics preventing your profits, etc.).

It beats talking to a therapist,
you tell yourself
as you realize
that a counselor would only cost
a fraction of what your precious stones
just ran you at the jeweler’s stand

(and then it dawns on you
that you never left home this morning,
and you’ve been hallucinating
those jewels all this time).

You take the opportunity to sit up in bed,
wishing
that you could at least have some kind of
shiny bauble
to stare at

(cursing
the day that you broke your bedroom window
while throwing your weight
to and fro,
resulting in a cardboard and
duct-taped mess).

———-

First draft posted to WHARVED in 2014

Not Uncommon

Jemblatrons squeeze through the tetrahedra
as though mall cops have some kind of a stake
in all of this.
It’s not uncommon
to see such a prairie-headed analogy
encompassing the flight of the larcenous
concord penguin, be the bird yella or gold,
kite-running or otherwise.
Whether or not we align ourselves
to this illustrious ancient practice
has little to do with our blood sugar content,
though many shallow-ended participants
profess prediabetic plight.

All of a Sudden

He’s resurrected!
it’s truly a marigold.
But you know what?
It’s this very kind of
garden-variety entendre
that I’ve been meaning to avoid here,
amongst all the sordid
ne’er-do-well activity
that seems to define our times
all of a sudden.

Wasn’t integrity of character
ever something to strive toward?
Maybe not in this system of
checks [cashed] and balances [slashed].

Though perhaps I’m as guilty
as any other layabout milquetoast out there,
lounging around the house
sipping my pink lemonade martinis
(my live-in mixologist’s proprietary recipe)
and grousing like one of my commoner counterparts.

Ducksnort

Why do we always gravitate toward senseless tragedy when we should already know how that train wreck’s going to play out? Seems like quite the schematic for failure, and I want no part in it unless you’re wrapping something in bacon on my behalf.
You’ve known my price for some time, okay? Don’t act so surprised.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah!
So Captain Chilango gave me his cure-all recipe once he’d heard my ducksnort of a chili cook-off success story. He looked me right in the eye and said
“kid, you’ve got potential, but you need to set your sights a little higher than some two-bit cook-off in a two horse town. Go see a movie or two–you’ll get to see the world through a different lens, and maybe learn a thing or two while you’re at it.”
Well, he was certainly right about that. I went and saw my first moving picture, and haven’t looked back ever since. Now I get all my valuable worldly information from the silver screen, to which my wife can attest.

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