Being 30

I think,
now that
I've finally
reached my
birthday
and am 30,
that what
I'm feeling
is less
a pulling
than a sense
of momentum.

I think that's
not so bad.

Pulling 30 Fourteen

More than anything,
it's the increased
awareness of your
own history that
begins to pull itself,
after three decades.

You begin to think,
is that really
what I've accomplished,
is that really all
that I seem to
have become?

It's not sadness
about success,
really, so much
as a personal sense
of pride, which
I believe is the
only true measuring
rod in life, the
only thing we
should care about.

I'm not talking
about pride
in a biblical sense,
not Pride, but
a sense of satisfaction,
not in wanting more
things or wanting less,
but the cumulative
perspective, the sense
of self, whether this
might really be
all I am capable
of being.

I think,
and just
because
of that,
I am?

How far beyond
that have I
managed to get,
how far along
my own personal
growth, have
I gotten?

How much do
I need to
depend
on others,
and how much
have I
assumed
for myself?

This is the pull
I speak of,
the full and
necessary weight,
what binds us
to the earth
and our own minds,
the self in the self.

It is a momentous
occasion, I think,
pulling 30.

Pulling 30 Thirteen

Part of the pull
everyone feels
is the self in the self,
because it's what
everybody wants,
but few are able
to obtain.

I mean to say,
most people
are confused
by the influences
that direct their
lives, so that
what they believe
are their thoughts
have actually come
prepackaged for them.

These people can
easily be influenced,
though they'll say
otherwise.

Those, however,
who are truly
in touch with
the self in the self
have an understanding
of their thoughts,
where they came from,
and where they are
going.

You could call them
the deep thinkers.

They're always chanting
"42, 42, 42,"
just because;

they think in
metaphor, because
their minds are
always at work,
because the self
in the self
has many things
to see and interpret,
and is never
comfortable,
always shifting.

They change their minds
because they want to,
not because they think
that's what they're
supposed to do.

They are a leaf on the wind -
watch them soar.

Pulling 30 Twelve

It strikes me that
each of the three
religions that
descended from
Abraham have all
gone on similar
paths.

In short,
they really like
to get attention.

Not to dwell on Jews
too much, because
they get enough shit
as it is, but
I've been thinking
that the Babylonian exile
was probably a good thing,
all things considered,
what probably made
Judaism the culture it is
today.

Because what King David
had been making of it,
that's what Christianity
eventually took over,
right at the last point
Jews were really in a position
of their own authority.

Christians got so excited
about it they actually
started acting exactly
like the Jews who gave
the original Christians
(i.e. Christ and his apostles)
such a hard time, which
makes it pretty ironic,
but not as much as what
Muslims did once they
appeared on the scene.

I don't mean to be heretical
here, but I consider Islam
basically to be Judaism
rebooted back to tribal days,
with all the Mosaic strictures
enforced incredibly strictly.

I once called Muslims today
to be the last revolution,
because that's exactly what
I think we're all waiting for,
the point where Muslims
finally get over the hump
and decide it's more
important to live the culture
than to die by it.

In this sense, I've been
watching religion, throughout
history and in my own time,
constantly pulling society
this way and that.

Being a part of this scene
has probably defined me
in more ways than I
have yet come to fully
embrace, which itself
is pretty appropriate.

Pulling 30 Eleven

The Missing Six
is like the missing link,
or like how we domesticated
dogs but forgot to tell
them other people, not
just their owners,
were okay, too.

The Missing Six
is symbolic and
maybe accidental.

The Missing Six
happened and
will never happen
again and will
not be fixed.

The Missing Six
might not even
be noticed
unless you're
paying attention,
and in that case
you might have
already assumed
that it was
on purpose.

In that case,
the Missing Six
was definitely
deliberate,
as are all the
actions of those
you admire, until
you don't, and
in which case,
everything is wrong
and so the Missing Six
was meant to give you
a reason right off
the bat.

Anyway, the Missing Six
pulled away some
attention, but
we'll soon be back
on track.

Pulling 30 Ten

Until I moved
to Colorado,
I never knew
there were
black squirrels,

and yet here
they are,
scurrying about
just like any
other kind,

defying my
previous beliefs
as a matter
of course,
shattering on
tiny legs

my assumptions.

Pulling 30 Nine

my beauty would see

my beauty would see
many things, and does,
but it's like it's
at the bottom of the sea,
or was meant for animals,
everywhere but where
humans could appreciate

my beauty would see,
except that it is blind
and indiscriminant,
at least as most people see,
too baffling to comprehend
and embracing too much
for its own good

my beauty would see
but it's constantly
pulling at me

Pulling 30 Eight

am I to rate myself
better than Melville,
Clooney, or Grant Morrison?

not all of us
can be Buddy Holly
or Mozart
(thank god!);

some of us just get
to wait our turn
in history

Pulling 30 Seven

I can think of nothing
that bugs me more than
the idea of IQ.

It's bullshit,
to put it bluntly.

I mean, have you ever
actually seen those
tests they administer
to gage that shit?

It's bullshit.

Only people who
actually think
that way
would actually
think that's
a good way
to measure
intelligence.

In other words,
it doesn't take
a genius to know
that IQ is a crock
of shit.

What are all these
Mensa fools even
doing, anyway?

Yeah, yeah, I know,
the whole point
of the IQ test is
to prove that there're
very few people who
actually qualify
for Mensa,
but still, when
has a genius
who has been
certified
actually gone off
to do anything
significant?

True genius
is rarely
acknowledged;
in fact, it
is more often
shunned and ignored,
even condemned
and villified,
because it's
not an easy thing
to understand
(I mean, right?).

I have never taken
an IQ test, and I
refuse to do that
in the same way
I refuse to accept
that everyone who
can has to drive
an automobile.

It's a twisted
concept of confirmity
that begs the question,
what's the real point?

And that's the real
problem, because
all these geniuses
are busy looking
for each other,
I dunno, to have
a drink together,
and ignoring anyone
who could actually
teach them something.

I'm not saying
I'm a genius, but
I know I think
a lot different
than most people,
and that's not
something that's
going to be measured
on some damn IQ test.

And because of that,
I'm pulled here and there,
but mostly apart.

Pulling 30 Five

Living in the age of film
where even those who enjoy movies
still think "books are better"
(another acceptable prejudice)
or "they don't make them like they used to"
is an incredibly frustrating experience.

How to legitimately find kindred spirits
in such a time? That's another example
of what it's like to be me, to know
there are others like me, but all the ones
I come across are on different
vibrational fields, like trying to be
a Star Trek fan when most fans hate
most Star Trek; how the franchise could
go from dead in 2005 to new heights in 2009;

or how Batman and Robin
could kill all public interest in 1997,
to box office records for The Dark Knight
in 2008. It's hard to surf this kind
of wave; even experts would tell you
that, but then, I don't abide
experts. I don't like experts,
and I don't like casual fans.

Why can't there be
more people
like me?

Pulling 30 Four

I played no organized sports
growing up (until ill-coached
efforts in my freshman and
senior high school years
on the track), so the closest
I got was the admittedly
extensive, five-child family
experience, highlighted
by the neighborhood
wiffleball games we used
to play all summer long.

I remember being invited,
once, to join a bambino league
(it was weird at the time,
and I'm still not sure to
this day if someone was
just being nice - which
would have been rare even
then - or if the offer
was genuine), but I was
routinely excluded even
from kickball games,
unless they were
organized by the school
itself, although I was
part of a rousing
dodgeball league and
seemed to do pretty well
on the playground,
at least for a while.

But I feel today
almost as if I'm still
participating in
wiffleball games
in the street, or
pretending to be
Dennis Eckersley,
waiting for the bus,
having a good time
but not being
"official" by any
recognizable standard.

Really, is that
so wrong?

Is it really just
my ego that needs more?

Or a desire to escape
employment traps
with an answer that
would be acceptable?

Pulling,
pulling,
pulling...

Pulling 30 Three

Three decades,
I think, is a nice
honest period,
a long enough time,
to look back
and see what has
been done with a life.

It is also, naturally,
a terrific opportunity
to continue fretting
about the future,
to wonder if that
many years have already
passed, what're you
gonna be able to do
that you haven't
already been able
to accomplish?

It's a great and awful time,
with your life tugging
both ways, and you're left
in the middle, not
really sure anymore
if you're still right.

Pulling 30 Two

As Marie Phillips
might observe,
part of anyone's
problem is the lack
of faith that can
get in the way.

It makes it that
much more difficult
to do the things
you know you're
perfectly capable
of doing, and it
only gets worse
the longer you
know and have
it demonstrated
for you that
there is precious
little faith
in your abilities,
whether passive
...or really passive.

If people weren't so
interested in their
selfish and self-defeating
games, maybe this
could change
for everyone?

Pulling 30

Like Jacob Marley or Atlas,
I'm pulling the weight,
all the weight,
pulling the weight of
my history.

It ain't easy.

Existential Angst

It seems that when I pulled
a part of a poem with this
phrase in it for a college
project, I was naming
my disease, and the thing
that would haunt me from
that moment on.

Existential angst.

I just don't know what to do with myself.

And the real problem is,
neither does anyone else,
which would be fine, but
I know even with my
limited interpersonal skills,
there really shouldn't be
this huge a problem, as I'm
pulling 30, such a sustained
inability to make meaningful
connections with others.

It makes one think that
as far as the world is
concerned, they are pretty
worthless.

I'm arrogent enough to have
assumed otherwise.

Usually, as far as I can
tell, that's not usually
such a stumbling block.

But I could be wrong.

I believe in me.
I believe in me.
I believe in me.

The Scouring Monk, the Invisible Man

Unwanted by the world,
I could only entertain myself
in fictional ones.

Betrayed on all sides,
I became an island of one.

Every time I demonstrated
a spark of potential,
I was left behind by everyone.

I became a scouring monk,
not because I wanted to,
but because I had to.

I became an invisible man,
a pariah, anathema
to all the world,
though I did my best
with what I had
to contribute.

It was never enough,
and every cheek turned
away, every shoulder.

What else could result
from this?

Some rough miracle?

The Gauntlet

Being a creative writer,
or so I've learned,
is a little like
being thrown into
a gauntlet, with the mere hope
that you will be noticed
for your bravery.

Sometimes, perhaps most times,
it isn't even about talent,
but about the people
you can impress, and it won't
even be about what you do
in that gauntlet.

You can literally kill yourself
in there, and then maybe
they'll talk about you,
but then, half the point
will be kind of missed, won't it?

So tell me, why does it have
to be that way?

The Boxer

Working in retail
is a little like
being a boxer,
especially one
trying to work
their way up
or near the end
of their career.

Sure, maybe you
have some people
who believe in you,
but guess who's getting
all the punches?

But I have to go
with a different
metaphor (stuck
with that one
because I liked
the title).

Being in retail
is like playing
for a professional
sports team, which
I will specify here
as a baseball club.

No matter how
you do personally,
everyone's going
to think of your
team based on
how it's actually
doing, and base
their expectations
and frustrations
on that.

If you're losing,
you're worth
less than nothing.

They'll still expect
the world of you,
but they won't care
what kind of pressure
that actually is
to work under.

They only want results,
and they don't care
how you're actually
doing, just that
your whole team
can't seem to win.

Now amplify that
for the Boston market,
where even heroes
can quickly turn
into goats (yes,
even I have been
guilty of this one),
at the drop of a dime.

It's tough to be a star.

And then transfer that
into an experience
that pays far less
and expects far more
with the belief that
you can be replaced
very easily, no matter
what you can actually
do, and based only
on the most minimal
of observations.

And then there's customers.

They don't see you at all,
even when you're the best
thing to happen to them
all year at least.

They only see something
that is supposed to
answer their questions
and give them their
products and send them
on their way.

They hardly even appreciate
any of it, and definitely
don't remember it.

And if you don't meet
even the most unreasonable
of demands, then you
are the villain,
you are anathema,
just like that.

In retail,
it's legal to
slander reputations.

Ain't that grand?

The Obstructionists

Whether they mean to or not,
whether they know they're doing it or not,
whether it's me or not,
whether it actually works or not,
whether it's helpful or not,
I cannot abide the business of obstructionists.

But hey, that's life.

My So-Called French Heritage

It can be a little tough
sometimes
to know a lot of people
don’t have this problem.

They know exactly
where they come from
and what that means.

I don’t mean to suggest
that I don’t.

I know both sides of my family
come from French-speaking
Canada, that they were lured here
on the basis of a better life,
same as pretty much
everyone else.

I know that the generations
including my parents
spoke French regularly.

I know that my grandfather
spoke it exclusively.

I know that because every time
we would visit, that was all he would speak,
and that was just another feature
of what it meant to visit him.

I knew French as a secret language,
something my parents would use
when they didn’t want us to know
what they were saying (mostly
when they argued, I think).

We learned to pray in French,
but that was it.

I struggled through several years
of French in school, rebelling
against learning it, catching just enough
for middling grades.

On 9/11, I skipped French class
and that was the only happy memory
from that day.

I’m not going to use any French here,
a strictly unilingual poem.

I don’t know if that’s out of shame
or relief, because I don’t
have to bother with it
anymore.

We grew up Catholic,
so that’s as much culture
as was practiced in the household,
and there’s nothing much French
about that, except maybe
immigrant faith
(I don’t know).

I never knew what it was
to be French, what my ancestors
thought about it.

Mostly, I have gleamed
what I know
from popular culture.

I am supposed to be a romantic.

That’s as much as I know.

Somehow I feel a little robbed,
but at the same time, I find
that I don’t really care,
except when I’m wondering
what I may be missing.

I think that’s the kind
of experience that
will be more common
the more we progress
along the world of homogeny,
which I don’t say with denigration
but with a kind of admiration.

If I wanted to, I could learn
everything I wanted to know
tomorrow.

Everything that’s French
still exists. I still have family,
even in Canada (with a kind of saint
somewhere back there, maybe
looking over me, as he opens
the doors to prayer without fail).

There’s France, obviously,
which left such a bad impression
on me this past decade, leading a charge
against global reason, isolationism
(which is about as opposite of French
as I can imagine, from all that
I have gathered) its apparent
rallying cry.

Well, it certainly
left me in tears.

I’ve talked with my mother
about a lot of things, a lot
of her experiences growing up,
what she knows about her
family, but I wonder if
I shouldn’t start there,
ask more questions,
be more curious.

Hey, having a counterfeit
French connection
is curious enough already,
isn’t it?

I might as well continue.

The more people try
to differentiate themselves,
the more they discover,
possibly,
somewhere in the end,
that they’re not all that different
after all.

I wonder if that’s what
I’ll find out.

I don’t know what it means
to be French,
I have no practical
understanding,
no sense of the culture.

I live in a void,
and make things up
as I go.

Really, I’m not so different.

But I would like to know
some ways that I am
the same.

Philosophic Topics: Catharsis

I'm beginning to think
that one of the things
that makes me unique
is my heavy emphasis
on catharsis.

I don't believe in
a single catharsis,
but rather in the power
of many catharses.

I believe that one should
seek the things that will
provide them with new
meaning, new insight,
the old things and the new
that inspire them,
that reflect back on
themselves.

I believe in the philosophy
of catharsis, that in all things
is the potential to see
and understand all things.

"Intelligence is
the application
of knowledge."

That's a quote
from Vince McMahon,
a figure you will
hardly ever
see referenced
in poetry,
but I figure it's
worth at least
considering,
not the least
for being thought-
provoking from
a source that few
people would consider
to look in that regard.

Believe me, I've thought
a lot about
intelligence,
how it is probably
its own philosophy,
and to consider it
in relation
to knowledge,
I don't know,
maybe Vinnie
isn't being
so unique,
or maybe he is,
but that's not
really the point.

But it's a catharsis,
a way to view something
that can probably lead
to fruitful thoughts
and actions,
and that's the point,
an excellent example.

But littered through
everything I do,
everything I think,
is the idea of catharsis,
the need to pursue it,
to experience it,
no matter where it is,
no matter where
or how
it leads me.

That's its own philosophy, too.

Philosophic Topics: Inception

To say all ideas originate
in the mind would probably
seem a little redundant,
but when do you ever
really think about it?

When do you think about
how that actually happens,
how you formulate your ideas?

How many people
are aware of
the internal
and external
processes
that combine
and effect
their ideas?

It becomes so
abstract
that you might as well
consider it
a philosophic topic.

Philosophic Topics: The Metaphysics of Value

What are good metaphysics
if not a philosophic topic?

Value is the funniest one
out there, because so few
people truly seem to
understand what it is,
how it applies to
their thought process,
how it probably ought
to be one of the things
they're always thinking about.

But that's life.

Philosophic Topics IX

Frustration
is definitely
a philosophic topic.

That's the only time,
right in the thick of it,
when it seems least relevant,
that I begin to appreciate
a Zen outlook, to believe
all will be well,
and that all will be well,
and that all manner of things
will be well.

It's panic
that really gets me,
that's all.

Philosophic Topics VIII

Don't mistake fate
for coincidence
and certainly don't
mistake coincidence
for fate.

But it's a fine philosophy
to live one's life by,
either one you choose.

Always look at circumstances
for the opportunities
they provide, how they benefit
you, no matter what
you're actually doing
or how useful that
activity apparently is.

Sometimes, things just
fall together, and it's
a fine sight to see,
especially if you
were paying attention
all along.

Philosophic Topics VII

threatened by intelligence
not buffered
by successful
strategic alliances,
most people
make the best members
of society
its pariahs

Philosophic Topics VI

there's something
offensive
about early
technological adopters
who don't understand
that the luxuries
they have today
aren't really
all that special,
and will be
even less so
tomorrow.

that being said,
what makes this
a philosophical topic
is that at some point,
it becomes offensive
to try and continue
living as if some
technologies
that have been
completely assimilated
are still inaccessible.

how to reconcile
these extremes?

why do people
have to make
everything
so complicated?

Philosophic Topics V

One might deem
"turn the other cheek"
to be its own kind
of philosophy, and
to that end, I'd like
to address it here,
because I can think
or no more relevant
example of how people
are supposed to act
around each other.

I understand the positive
nature, the goodwill
and best intentions
that lay behind it,
and that there is basically
nothing wrong with it,
but it's also a little
naive, something even Jesus
couldn't always live up to
(you might recall a certain
anecdote concerning a
temple incident),
and perhaps for that
very reason I can't
say I personally endorse it,
at least not fully.

I believe that when people
are allowed to persist
in behaviors that are detrimental
to others, it hurts those
people as much as it hurts
those who are affected
by them, and to say
that the best and only
way to react is to
turn the other cheek
is to become a part
of the problem.

It's okay to say there's
a better way, that you
can't force people to change,
and I know we've had some
considerable examples
of this philosophy
(at least apparently)
in the last century,
but I say, change begins
by attempting to initiate it,
and that is not a self-
fulfilling prophecy.

Prophecy,
not philosophy.

Philosophic Topics IV

I like the concept
of good vibrations,
just letting things
that make you feel
good surround you,
and block away
the negative.

It's more of a philosophy,
really, because it's far
easier said than done,
and you can debate whether
that's actually good for
you, and I think that's
what philosophy should
really be about, not
some supposed genius
explaining the world,
but the opening of
a dialogue.

Maybe some of the philosophers
already knew that...

Philosophic Topics III

As to whether or not
it's possible to please
others, or figure out
their motivations,
I think that's one of
the biggest topics
possible in philosophy,
not so much whether they
exist, some psychological
analysis of what it means
when others reject you,
but whether is possible
or preferable to accept
that life goes on, or
can go on, regardless
of what your life means
to others.

This is the existential
angst, the infinitesimal
atom, the grain of salt
in your eye that can
cause you annoyance

but beyond that?

Philosophic Topics II

One of those philosophic topics
that always bugged me
has been the struggle to determine
what exactly the nature of reality is,
which may be as simple as whether
or not what you see is real
or cogito ergo sum.

I don't need to think
or to see to be or be seen;
idiots and blind people
are just as real as me.

Philosophic Topics

I've never much been compelled
to read a lot of philosophy -

in fact, I avoided the topic
in college precisely because
I didn't want it ruined
liked so many others,

and certainly didn't want
someone telling me I was
right or wrong or forcing
another flimsy assignment
paper on some basic
reporting, which is all
most teachers really seem
to be interested in
(because they'll know
if that stuff's accurate,
but won't admit that
they can't keep up
with your own thoughts).

(Everyone's got an opinion
until someone says it's wrong,
but that's why it's called
an opinion, and why we
should focus a little more
on that, because opinions
are the basis of philosophy.)

Like poetry, philosophy doesn't
come easily as interesting
reading material, because
a lot of it just isn't all
that interesting, no matter
what others have to say
about it.

In fact, philosophy is very much
something teachers could sit around
talking about (which is one
version of what a teacher
should be doing, that or letting
their students do it for them),
because it almost doesn't matter
what the original philosophers
actually said, so much as what
they were trying to.

But all this is a roundabout way
of saying that like poetry,
philosophy is certainly something
that I like to dabble in,
liberally mixing into my poetry,
actually (you may have noticed)
just because that's the kind
of guy I am.

I would very much like to find
people who are interested
in talking about life, not
so much complaining about it
(although it's fun and I
certainly do my share of it)
as attempting to answer
the reasons why, the same
as anyone, the same thing
people have been doing
for as long as people
have been around.

But those people,
even though
they're everywhere,
are very hard
to find.

So I write about it.

Happiness Not Required

Isn't it a little odd
that other people
really don't care
whether or not
you're happy?

I think that's
what we ought
to be thinking about,
the true measure
of philosophy.

I'm A Stranger Here Myself

I think we'd all be better off
if we stopped treating each other
like strangers.

I mean think of it, stop being
so afraid of everyone else,
and don't you think

things might run a little more smoothly?

Books Are The Most Thriving Endangered Species of All!

I gotta say,
and I know
I just talked
about this,
but as far
as endangered
species go,
books are doing
pretty okay
for themselves.

The real problem
is that everyone
keeps lamenting
their sad fate,
as if they're
already gone,
and we're a
poorer culture
for not noticing
it yet.

The problem with this
is that those same
people have no idea
what they're missing
in the meantime,
because they're so busy
complaining. They
really don't even know
what they're defending,

like a bird complaining
that there's no room
to fly
while it's soaring
in the sky.

Maybe I'm talking
about books,
and maybe I'm
talking about
environmentalists.

Or maybe I'm
just taking up space
with words.

Ah, well,
that's fun, too.

All I know is, there's a lot
of books out there, and more
and more every day, which is
a strangely curious thing
to happen for something that's
apparently quickly fading away!

Karma's A Funny Thing

The thing about karma
is that you have no idea
how it happens.

It's one of life's great
mysteries,
something you can
accept on faith.

But for the believers,
it's got to be nice
to know that the jerk
who just offended you
is going to get it back
at some point,
even if they don't
realize it,
understand it,
or remember
what they did
to deserve it.

I guess karma
is the great leveler,
because no amount
of apparent success
will keep it
from finding you,
because it's just
one of those great
facts of nature.

Birds Are Quixotic, Too!

Birds.

Yeah, so I'm not
one of those people
who looks at nature
to learn esoteric
facts (fascinating
though they can
sometimes be),
but rather...
to look at nature.

I look at a bird
not to wish I
could fly quite
so independently
and free, but
to see the wonder
of it, the...
otherness of it,
to appreciate
that a bird is.

Sometimes, it seems
they're looking
at me, too.

Too Many Cooks

I don't understand how something
that's been done literally
for a thousand years
functions far worse
than moviemaking or any number
of sports.

I'm talking about the writing
profession.

Now, I would assume if
people were at all interested
in discovering new
and unexpected talent,
there would be the equivalent
of the team scout,
maybe exploring high schools,
colleges,
or god forbid some kind
of official writing guild,
where new writers, honest
writers, the ones who have
talent and are not just
enamored of something
they can't actually do
might be noticed.

But instead, it seems
as if everyone
wants to fall back
on the excuse
that publishing just
ain't as popular
as it used to be,

Bullcocks.

There are hundreds of thousands
of books published every year,
and I'm including poetry
in this, but somehow,
not even a comprehensive,
definitive, popular
public publication can
track all of it.

Word of mouth
is kind of beside
the point in this
kind of circumstance.

This is why most people
gravitate to popular fiction,
because it's the only thing
guaranteed to sell,
to look familiar
and not threatening,
because for most people,
it's just too hard to
find interesting things.

Why the hell
do we make it
so hard?

Books are old,
really, really old,
and we really
have to still
keep approaching them
this way?

That's kind of what's wrong
with our current culture
as a whole.

We literally don't understand
what we've got,
and yet the things
we complain about
are all ridiculously
more ephemeral,
mere phantoms
and bogeymen.

Dudes, we could
make things a lot easier,
and put more solid footing
beneath us
if we'd simply stop thinking
of everything as just
a way to make some profit,
and instead think of how,
and not as some charitable
notion, it affects
the greater good.

It's time to think
of community first,
the common good,
common sense.

Stop being so stupid!!!

Everyone's Got Something to Bitch (Except Me and My Monkey)

I actually lied
about me.

I bitch about
a lot of things.

It's the monkey
I'm not sure
about.

But according to
some studies I
just read about,
it's apparently worse
to vent anger than
(I guess) to suppress it.

I guess I'm sorry,
but I think it's probably
better to try and figure
out why people get angry
than to say it's not good
to be angry.

If the cause is something
people can actually
work on, isn't that better
than saying you shouldn't
be angry in the first place,
that it's mentally unhealthy
to express this feeling?

Give peace a chance
but rely on common sense.

We live with a lot of
fucked up people.

It's not always
going to be pretty.

1007 Florence

I do still wish the shoes were there
but the bear will have to do

Coyote, Trickster XII

I think I'm at my best
when I'm my most quixotic,
which might explain
a few things.

Coyote, Trickster XI

When I got into poetry,
back in college,
I wasn't much of a reader.

I wrote because I had
always been interesting
in writing poetry.

But then I got into reading it,
and then I seemed to stumble
into a whole community,
and for a while,
I completely understood
what most people mean these days
when they think of poetry.

But then a lot of that
went away.

When I graduated,
I tried to cling
to that community,
but it resisted
my best efforts.

I kept writing
but I struggled
to keep reading.

Recently,
I got back into
reading.

But I'm still waiting
for the community feel
to come back.

Coyote, Trickster X

I got to read comic books
exactly the way I wanted to
for about five years,
and during that time,
there were three comics shops
that I got to visit
on a regular basis.

By the end of that period,
roughly 1995-1999, each of them
had either closed or moved
to more inconvenient locations.

When I got back into reading them,
I made sure to never let that happen
again; ah, so I cheated,
started shopping
online.

What else do you expect
from a trickster?

Coyote, Trickster IX

After spending my entire
childhood preparing for it,
I finally did a public
comic strip, for the school
paper, and nobody cared.

But hey, it wasn't as if
I was actually doing it
for anyone else.

And I doubt anyone realized
when I satirized the local
weatherman, but that
was the strip's
crowning achievement.

But I only really missed it
myself when I changed its name
after I had stopped making it.

Coyote, Trickster VIII

I was so confusing
in middle school
that even the uncool kids
were telling me
I had to be more cool.

Turns out in high school,
it really didn't matter;
I became more quixotic...

Coyote, Trickster VII

I played violin,
like my grandfather
(sometimes it seemed
because of my
grandfather), but I
was a trickster about that,
too, and maybe that was
by necessity.

I didn't grow up
in a violin town.

Every stroke of the bow
was a rebellion
of some kind.

The strings
were on the prowl.

Coyote, Trickster VI

I became obsessed
at an early age
with John Henry.

I still don't think
I know why.

But I suppose,
it's because he
was a trickster,
someone who defied
all reason,
defied expectations,
and ultimately sacrificed
himself to prove his point.

If that's not a trickster,
I don't know what is.

Coyote, Trickster V

I drew deeper and deeper
into fictional worlds,
which only true tricksters
can comprehend.

I'm not talking about
being lost in fantasy,
but becoming immersed
in my own imagination,
something I grew more
and more reluctant
to leave.

Coyote, Trickster IV

Growing up with four siblings
meant a lot of overlapping
...for a few years, and then
a lot of diverging.

It seems as if I continued
doing a lot of the things
we'd been doing, but in
new and different ways,
like a trickster playing
the same game with
different rules, just
to confuse everyone.

Coyote, Trickster III

In terms of keeping up
with four siblings, hey,
why don't you give it a try?

But I did it mostly
by keeping to myself.

That's the same way
I survived grade school;
I actually started out
as somewhat wildly popular,
but it became a chore
to keep up with everyone else
because I was busy running
my own circles, the mad man
of the playground,
a regular trickster
who could eek out sympathy
even though I gave back
almost nothing in return.

I still don't know how I did it.

Coyote, Trickster II

In my earliest days, family
apparently meant everything,
but I was too young
to appreciate it.

That's when we made the majority
of our most interesting trips
to relatives around Rhode Island
and Massachusetts, some of which
were repeated enough in later years
that I would still recognize
quite well today,
but others, now reduced
to phantoms.

I guess even some of my past
is a trickster.

Coyote, Trickster

I was born to a vocation:
to bear witness.

***

On the night I was born,
strange tricksters were about,
from many cultures, mingling,
maybe placing dibs.

They were trying to decide
what form my mischief
would take.

I'm not sure
I've helped them much
over the past
three decades,
but I've certainly
given it my best shot.

But to be fair,
I haven't made it easy
for just about anyone
much less myself

(which may be
a trickster's greatest secret).

Pretend Zen, Counterfit Zen

What I really love
is someone telling me
that I can just make myself
feel happy.

First of all, I wouldn't want that;
I mean, who the fuck
actually would, ignorantly
assuming that it's
possible,
preferential,
or even perfect
to be happy?

I don't know that
we're here to be happy
so much as to live
and figure out
what we can get
out of that.

It isn't about
happiness, however
you define it.

I like Zen as much
as the next guy, but
I'm not about to
rectify everything
to reach that state.

It's a fun one to visit,
but an awfully dull one
to live in.

I mean seriously,
who would really want
to believe that they
can be at peace with the world,
when the world is never going
to be at peace with itself.

Are you really going to say
that it's okay to be okay
about everything?

That's some pretty shitty philosophy.

We are, and so we react,
that's my law of physics.

We're all a part of the animal kingdom.

The Poem as a Ritual

there is comfort and knowledge
in the familiar,
repeating and revisiting
what you already know,
faith in the past
and in the future,
an anchor for the present,
where all good poems flow.

Advanced Genius

Advanced Genius

As originally proposed
by Hartley and Bergman,
the Advanced Genius Theory
revolves mostly around figures
who have already been,
generally speaking,
recognized for their genius,
who then descend into
material that seems to
obscure their legacy,
but instead continue
working at the same
level that first brought
them to public attention,
at a rate the public can
no longer keep up with.

Basically, a genius is
someone who changes
everything, and continues
to change, past the ability
for the audience to accept it,
according to this theory.

And while I admire
Hartley and Bergman for
pursuing this theory,
I propose a new one,
that the public doesn’t
always recognize genius,
even at the start, or for
some reason finds
a way to ignore its value.

This would be an
Advanced Genius
that is so advanced
it is never properly
understood, even when
it seems to be.

***

There are many examples,
throughout history, but
I can only concentrate now
on those that have affected
me personally, that have
helped form the index
of my life as I have known it.

***

The young nation of the United States
was far more contentious than we
can sometimes appreciate, no matter
how much we read about it.

I think the first real victims of our history
were the John Adams, who were the second
and sixth presidents, who failed to capture
properly even in that age the glamour
some invariably seek in their leaders,
lost in the shuffle, the only of the first seven
to serve single terms, victims of politics.

It was certainly ironic for the father,
who had been bold enough to represent
British officers in the aftermath of
the so-called Boston Massacre,
and worse for Quincy, who might have
permanently avoided the course
to Civil War, given the chance, but
they doomed, like Henry Clay,
American Cassandras.

***

I still don’t understand how Kennedy
is not more appreciated today, how
anyone could think that his legacy
might somehow be forgotten;
only if we let it, I say.

All that the Clintonians played at,
he was, the consummate politician,
who was a modern Adams, unpopular
but bold, a visionary whose vision
became obscured by lesser men.

***

As far as presidents go, I could not
exclude W, another unpopular son
of an unpopular president, but who
defied history, tried to forge it,
despite every opposition,
who maybe, as we all are,
was more flawed than I
sometimes seem to admit,
but was still the last man in the room,
capable of suggesting what others
only cared to suppress, that there
are better ways to live, if only
we refuse to settle.

***

Anyway, for levity’s sake, most of
this genius stuff concerns entertainers,
so don’t worry too much.

***

Star Trek has been advanced genius
from the start, struggling to find its audience
even when everyone knew everything about it.

You’d be hard-pressed to find
more contentious fans than these,
who can’t even decide between
Trekkers and Trekkies,
who reject easily and sabotage themselves,
even while bemoaning the lack of amusement,
when the most they can do is entertain themselves
with all the things that they hate.

I don’t pretend
to understand it.

When you try to be expansive,
to tell the human adventure,
you would be hard-pressed
to find a lot of humans
who will really appreciate
what you’re trying to do.

***

Even Star Wars lost its original fans
when it tried to expand, right at the same time
the Wachowskis unfortunately confirmed
that there was more than just a big idea
and fancy fighting
behind their Matrix.

***

Jim Carrey couldn’t find his audience
despite becoming a star with the same routine
after about a decade of trying,
and even then, hardly anyone could keep up with him.

Hey, you try watching
Once Bitten
(early, still obscure),
Ace Ventura
(big break, talking ass),
The Cable Guy
(audience confusion),
The Truman Show
(artistic breakthrough),
Man on the Moon
(artistic channeling),
The Majestic
(dramatic effort, little respect),
Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas
(big hit, critical heat),
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
(critical love, cult audience)
and understanding his relationship
to the audience.

***

U2 is recognized as the biggest band in the world,
but really, you’d hardly know it.

They’ve been popular through four decades now,
but there is still a lack of critical respect,
as if their music hasn’t been iconic
several times over at this point, still
chasing the ghosts of the Beatles,
Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, untold others.

“Gloria”
“Sunday Bloody Sunday”
“New Year’s Day”
“Pride”
“Bad”
“Where the Streets Have No Name”
“I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”
“With or Without You”
“Desire”
“One”
“Mysterious Ways”
“Beautiful Day”
“Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of”
“Vertigo”
“Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own”
“Moment of Surrender”

And that’s only a sampling, probably their
most popular and iconic material.

I could list tons more.

Perhaps Hartley is on to something
when he excludes them from his own theory,
saying they’ve been too popular,
but the continuing reputations of
Rattle & Hum, Zooropa, Pop, that their
Passengers side-project is still obscure…

No one actually argues that all of U2’s material
is actually beloved, and that they still can’t
take their place beside the rock gods…

***

Coldplay and Oasis have the great fortune
of standing on the shoulders of these giants,
U2 I mean, producing great material
and being overlooked by most surveys.

***

I have come to appreciate the musical genius
of Thrice as well, but you’d hardly know
they possessed it by the utter lack of recognition,
even for their most ambitious projects,
even for The Alchemy Index.

Yeah, I just don’t understand it…

***

But I mourn most for Hootie & the Blowfish.

If modern music had a soul, it would belong
to these boys, who are very much men these days,
well into their family lives, past the college days
and wolf brothers, past their glory year
and slowly rapid decline in public fortunes.

They were brilliant enough to identify
the cracked rear view from the start,
to call out all the fairweather johnsons;
just as they were starting to make
the songs they really loved, radio
played musical chairs, and they
were left looking for lucky.

Hey, Darius (who was not Hootie)
became a black country star,
so it’s not like they were forgotten,
just become painfully unpopular,
“uncool.”

They were only “cool” in the first place
because everyone liked them, for a moment.

But they always had their tastes
scattered, smothered, and covered,
and it’s still all I believe.

***

Colin Farrell became in an instant
one of my favorite actors, but
Hollywood took one look and
saw only an object that needed
to be exploited, so that audiences
never had the same opportunity.

But you sit back now
and can begin to see
where all the talent was:

Tigerland
(brash new face),
Hart’s War
(upstaging Willis),
Minority Report
(fighting Cruise),
S.W.A.T.
(turning TV into his own),
Daredevil
(having fun),
Alexander
(commanding history),
The New World
(inhabiting it),
Miami Heat
(growling a repeat),
Cassandra’s Dream
(heart on his sleeve),
In Bruges
(heart in his throat),
Crazy Heart
(finding the notes of a weary place)

***

He fell into the same pit as Oliver Stone,
I guess, someone who lost favor the more
he tried to explore his potential.

Stone, not surprisingly,
has explored both Kennedy and W.

***

Did I mention Melville?

The dude was a genius then,
and still hasn’t been properly discovered,
a century before Welles, a giant obscured
for no good reason I can fathom
even now.

***

Brando, and Welles,
identified in Hartley’s theory,
along with Bob Dylan,
who has enjoyed a resurgence
a lot of critics love, but fans
want to see end already.

***

Johnny Cash, or so
Walk the Line goes,
was rejected until he found his voice,
and then did a fine job
of obscuring it again,
trying to live too hard,
became an outlaw who aged,
and his twilight and final years
still aren’t appreciated as they should be.

Who to compare his late period to?

***

They probably still think
Harry Potter will be easily forgotten,
but I think that’s nonsense.

Narnia has a better chance,
Tolkien’s Middle Ages fantasies.

Harry is one for the history books.

***

Peter Ackroyd; no, really,
please explain to me how
this writer is not more
acclaimed, not more
well-known, how he isn’t
as celebrated as those
he periodically writes about?

***

How anyone ever failed
to understand what Lost
was doing is beyond me,
far more convoluted than
its study of essential human nature
could ever have been.

***

He may not have conjured
Huck Finn in so many words,
but how is there any doubt
that Dave Barry is Mark Twain’s
successor? Is he somehow too
irreverent? Cherish him now,
because by all rights you
will still be reading him
tomorrow.

***

Comic books
comic books,
like professional wrestling
a primal exercise
of modern might and myth.

When the proper respect?

***

For that matter, when will
Grant Morrison be recognized
as a literary genius?

***

I can only thank god
I was there when
Green Lantern was finally elevated
thanks to Geoff Johns
to the level the concept
really deserved.

***

I think the battle over
accepting Stephen King
is being won, too.

Thankee.

***

I don’t know, this isn’t
an index
so much as it is
the beginning of
an argument,
perhaps the same one
in Hartley’s theory,
to stop this unnecessary
impulse to overlook
the treasures that are everywhere,
to quit making excuses
we constantly make to not like something,
when that accomplishes nothing.

Every day there will be things
no one ever finds out about,
great things that might have
changed the world,
so what’s the point of
ignoring the things
we already know,
that beat the odds
and entered the popular consciousness?

I suppose that’s what
the Metaphysics of Value
are about, but as advanced genius,
there’s another name to call,
a way to identify what people
apparently refuse to enjoy
for no conceivable,
or at least good,
reason.

Losers

I think the thing I enjoy the most
is the relativity of manners.

In a museum, everyone knows
exactly what's expected of them,
and so they behave accordingly.

...Unfortunately, most people
have no idea how to behave
just about anywhere else.

In a movie theater, for instance,
people know by now that they're
not supposed to be on their
cell phones, but what they do
find acceptable is leaving their garbage
literally wherever they want to.

They think ushers are there
to clean up after them, when
ushers are really there because
they have to be.

There's no reason anyone should
expect someone else to do that,
and I think that's our biggest
failing in society today.

If it was assumed that there
were no ushers, that we really
did have to throw our own trash
away, would someone really
flip their crap onto the floor?

I don't know, maybe it's just
my absurd belief that people
really ought to have some sense
of responsibility, even at this
most basic of levels.

Well, then again, if theaters
really want to stay relevant,
they might want to think
of a better profit margin than
selling popcorn. Why does
anyone need to eat during
a movie, much less on a long
care trip? It's just something
we've all assumed is necessary,
and I have no idea why.

Maybe as things change,
problems like this will go away;
as it is, we're already well on our way
to eliminating much of public
interaction; maybe the less of it
there is, the better people
will behave.

Or you know, it could get worse.

But I try and not be a pessimist...

Unhappiness

I was reading in a book
that cats prefer warm places,

except, apparently, when it
is warm all the time, or so
I've recently noticed with Boo.

She has taken to collecting herself
beneath ceiling fans, so she can
enjoy the reverse of what she normally seeks.

It occurs to me that she bears
her discomforts better than
a person would, who instead
of readusting, would probably
find someone to complain to.

That, I think, would be the main difference
between animals and people, that animals
can compensate, whereas people do everything
possible to avoid such a peril, and finally
innovate only as a last resort.

If we are unhappy, it's because we've
made it all but impossible to be anything but;
we've literally given happiness over to others,
and that's the real prize, not in any monetary
sense, but as a social contract, which
we allow to bind ourselves in every-increasing
knots.

Sometimes it's easier to figure out
what a cat would do instead.

War on Unchecked Privilege

In many ways, we live
in far more insidious times
than the Decade of Greed.

We live in times where we know
lots of people took a great deal
of advantage of others, and
our response is to continue
the erosion of the middle class,
so that privilege may continue
to indulge itself, privilege
not only in wealth but in
the idea of leadership,
the driving engine of the beast.

The symptoms of this disease,
this unparalleled calamity,
are an increasing presumption,
an assumption of rights
that in our modern times
believes it's just as right now
as when there were labeled classes
to believe other people can and should
bear the brunt of the work that's
necessary (or necessitated) by
this privilege.

I call it a society of butlers
because of course such people
cannot be expected to look after
the effects of their lifestyle
and manners, and these butlers
are expected to bear it with
good humor.

Good humor! Because that's
what we're supposed to do.

There comes a time when
this privilege defies the boundaries
of reciprocity, the ideal by which
all free societies should guide
themselves, the first rule
of democracy.

Book Terrors...! VIII: DFW

I feel like I owe the dude
some kind of apology,
because I really don't mean
to suggest that I think
DFW was some kind of
worthless bum, or that
I was jealous of
the circumstances that
basically drove him to
his grave (though, seriously,
I would probably kill
for those circumstances,
maybe even a literaray genius
like DFW, and for that
I won't apologize).

The more I read his thoughts
in Lipsky's book, the more and
more I see him as a kindred
spirit, aside from any differences,
and I want to have been there,
to have talked with him
myself, to see if I could
have made things easier
(and not just to score some
connections), because he
really did make it tough
for himself.

I would liken DFW to
some wild turkeys me and
my sister saw the other day,
running (but also taking
their time) across the street.

I've previously written about
some other wild turkeys, which
I read about loitering in the Bronx,
which seemed pretty weird, and
eventually called it a Pelham day,
in remembrance of an old fort
near the sight of an archeological
dig of colonial days, when people
weren't just fighting, but fighting
to make it work.

I'd say he was like a wild turkey
completely unaware (or so we
think) that most people, when
they see one, can only think
of Thanksgiving, that it probably
would be better for that wild turkey
to be like Bigfoot, and make itself
scarce, because sooner or later,
someone's going to have to idea
to track it down again, just
in time for the feast.

Gobble, gobble.

He was a guy who was put
in the unfortunate position
of earning some hype,
but could only run around
wildly, because he couldn't
deal with it; he was the wild turkey
who put itself in the line of vision,
just waiting to be carved up.

I don't know, maybe I'll
actually have to read him
to really understand him.

Rhetoric

I can think of nothing worse
than saying things only because
you're expected to say them.

Can you?

Don't bother responding -
it was a rhetorical question...

My Back Pages

I think life in the 21st century
is going to be defined as an
attempt to be yourself
while at the same time
advertising the hell out
of who you'd like to be.

Tangled Up In Blue

I've got one ongoing
relationship, and that's
with depression.

Oh, it's off and on,
but yeah, it's always there;
I belong with Pooh and
his friends, probably.

I guess it's anxiety
more than anything,
an inability to match
reality with my
expectations, which
I don't think are really
so impossible.

But for some people,
even simple things
are hard to find.

Jovo Redux

Maybe this is just fate
declaring itself or
the words of a coward,
or accepting coincidences
when I shouldn't, but
I gotta say, Jovo, it
really does feel
as if we just aren't
meant to be together.

Maybe I'm just saying it
because that's how it felt
yesterday...

This Rolling Stone Gathers Moss

I may be wrong, but
if you want to be an
authority about
something, you probably
ought to be able to see
beyond your preconceived
prejudices about the 500
best songs.

Or you know, I may
simply be upset
because you ignored
so many of my favorites,
so you could cover
some fairly familiar
territory, which, still,
just feels wrong...

Twilight of the Old Morality

There comes a time
when all things
must fail.

There comes a time
when the inevitable
becomes, well...

There comes a time
when all the old barriers
fall apart and reassemble,
back to the forms they
once held, but better.

There comes a time
when the things that
begin come to an end.

There comes a time
when endings produce
new beginnings.

There comes a time
when, yeah, even time
doesn't seem so important.

There comes a time.

Book Terrors...! VII: The Advanced Genius Theory

If anyone I've encountered
recently would qualify
as the antithesis of DFW,
it would be Jason Hartley,
co-founder of the
Advanced Genius Theory.

Anyone familiar with my poetry
over the past four idylls
will recognize a certain amount
of similarities between this
theory and my own thoughts,
but suffice it to say,
Mr. Hartley figures it's
about time to stop
worrying about reasons
to hate something and
start figuring out why
you can probably like it.

So it was pretty awesome
to read his thoughts,
discover another Stossel,
a kindred soul made of rubber
(making it easier to
bounce around, naturally).

It makes me want to write
a lot more about
all the things I like,
and all the reasons
to like them, no matter
what other people say,
how many reasons
there are to think
anything but what
I've been for some
thirty years now
(yes, being my own
kind of genius,
I was formulating
my interests straight
from the womb).

I would like to refine
Hartley's theory,
broaden it past just
those recognized geniuses
and consider those never
given their due, but who
still deserve it, or maybe
I'll just carve a tree
so as to guarantee
that I will make your library
at some point.

...What was I saying?

Book Terrors...! VI: Continuum

It's funny to hear
DFW describe
entertainment as
filling a void like
an addiction, and
certainly how he
talks about his own
habits, because he
truly doesn't seem
to have any reason
or interest in his,
and so certainly
for him, his reasoning
is sound; for some
points of view, maybe
I could be seen as
similar, but I would
disagree.

I don't use it to substitute
social interaction, or
to glut on it (even when
I was at my "worst," I
never just watched
for the sake of
watching, but because
I was legitimately being
entertained, and this
is not even to count
all the hours I have
spent reading any
number of a thousand
things, in print and
online).

I am not inherently
someone who will
benefit a great deal
from extended
interactions with
other people, and
that has little to
do with "shyness"
or social anxiety,
so much as a lack
of basic common
demonitators that are
anything less than,
well, entertainment.

It just so happens
that I benefit more
from experiencing
what other creative
voices have to say,
and if I happen to
be entertained along
the way, then so much
is the better, and really,
why should I complain
about that? Where
would it improve my
circumstances to belittle
the results of what I
think is a perfect
culmination of mankind's
potential, when all the petty
differences are truly set aside
(like every two years
at the Olympics)?

Particularly as an American,
where it has become our
national drive to engage
in these activities?

Louis Hartz apparently
thought to note that
Americans tend to
avoid extremes, which
I would say is exactly
what helped forge
our country in the first
place, and no matter
how many examples
you can think of
that would contradict
this, just within
the counterculture
and the void it's left
us for the past forty years,
I would still argue that
we're still driven by it,
and the only way the
American Dream will
ever truly be broken,
when we trade
bread and circuses
for coliseums and empire,
is when we change that.

Yet I don't see that happening;
where would be the fun in that?

Natural Selection

Of all the rational ways
to express oneself,
I believe the majority
of us choose to do
so in irrational ways.

I think it's why nature
has a way of avoiding us,
not because we're
the top of the food chain
(because I hardly believe
anyone really wants
to boast about that,
whether or not it's
even true, so much as
easy to assume, because
we have so many more
ways to kill things
in abundance)
but because nature
is inherently rational,
even all the weather
we find so inconvenient.

Our greatest form of
expression is irrationality,
the ability to know what
the right thing is and decide
not to do it.

I wouldn't particularly call it
evolution, and in that way,
I've never subscribed
to "survival of the fittest,"
because any fool can survive,
and any fool can make
a considerable collection
of things (even trash, and
not just metaphorically,
counts, I might add, and that
shit is free), but it's how
we treat each other, how
we refuse to accept
that our lack of rationality
impedes us, and I say
this from the perspective
of a considerably irrational
mind, because that's
the only way I know to
confront the irrationality
around me.

Yeah, that really doesn't make
any sense, and yet, that's what
I do, out of sheer frustration,
because I keep hoping
and expecting that people
will learn to be less selfish,
and I'm not talking by way
of symptoms, of material things,
but in the way they approach
others, about knowing that
they can't just assume the world
will accept every ill-considered
thought they have.

That's what school ought to do,
if parents won't, instead of
cramming "knowledge" only
intended to act as an example
(and yet graded as though
life depended on it), try
and see what wisdom,
a little common sense,
can accomplish.

I'm not saying people
are stupid, but they
sure like to act like it.

Predictably
irrationally.

Book Terrors...! V: Deep Survival

As long as a thing is possible,
it lasts forever; there is no
such thing as extinction
for creativity, for what
the human mind
is capable of.

This is why I must scoff
at the traditional beliefs
that continue to suggest
that what we have can
be lost, because it's
not in what we have
but what we can do
where our greatest
treasures lie.

As hard as it is to believe,
all that we have now is
not even the beginning
of a pinnacle of
human civilization,
because that pinnacle
is in our minds.

I am not a pessimist.

I am a sorry realist,
an unfortunate dreamer
of impossible things,
forever restless,
unsatisfied with
what I see around me,
because all I see
is potential.

It makes me somewhat surly,
but I would rather be that
than to accept things
and settle for what's easy.

If I were a recent movie,
I would be The Imaginarium
of Doctor Parnassus, and I
am always fighting Mr. Nick.

That's why I believe in war,
because only in destruction
can new things be made,
and it is in a million little
battles every day that
all things are achieved.

If we stopped
just for one second
to acknowledge that,

we might have the beginnings
of true wisdom among us.

Book Terrors...! IV

Here's where we get to
Deep Survival.

The Great American Novel
isn't about laboring over
your story, but rather about
simple inspiration,
whatever form that may take,
if it happens to be
immediately relevant,
or a grand spectacle
that can't be appreciated
until decades later.

I guess I simply don't understand
how DFW fretted so much
over writing, whether it
was some sense of obligation
he'd picked up (growing
into all sorts of apparent
privilege that allowed
him to be singled out
before he'd actually
accomplished anything)
or his own psychoses.

Because for me, ideas
just seem to float around.

I don't get how any writer
ever begs for material,
because I guess I assume
that writers write
because they can think
more creatively than others.

But that's not really the case,
because the arts are too
alluring to pass up as
a vanity, which is a comment
I direct not at DFW,
but for all the sycophants
in general, who take it
for granted, rather than
from inspiration, that
they can make a living
doing this stuff.

But I'm not bitter;
I'm with ED.

You don't need to be
acknowledged
in order to do this.

Book Terrors...! III

Here's the deal:

The Hungry Mind consumes all,
the Hungry Mind is like a sponge,
the Hungry Mind will never give up,
and quite frankly, I simply
don't understand
how the Hungry Mind can ever
be sated.

The Hungry Mind is what we think of
when we consider literary fiction,
the kind of storytelling that isn't
satisfied with anything less than
an expansive view of even
the most common things.

The Hungry Mind is what turned
the Trojan War, the legends
of great heroes like Beowulf,
King Arthur and Robin Hood,
the Three Musteteers,
Sherlock Holmes & Hercule Poirot,
Doc Savage & Superman,
Jason Bourne & Jack Bauer
into folklore and literature.

The Hungry Mind cannot be
turned off or lost;
it's Crime & Punishment
in the year 2666.

Even if everyone stops reading,
someone will still tell stories,
and all of it will come back.

The Hungry Mind is mankind's
indomitable legacy.

The Hungry Mind
is a state of mind,
the incurable mind,
the precocious
and pretentious
and that little voice
inside all of us,
goading us on,
the devil and the angel
sitting on our shoulders,
waiting to see which side
will win, the battle
of good & evil,
a game of backgammon.

The Hungry Mind
is constant as the Northern Star,
and makes all the world a stage.

I feel pretty good about it.

Book Terrors...! II

The problem that literature
faces is that its most popular
elements are duplicated
and improved upon
in film, television, and comics.

If you want to know the real
reason why Harry Potter became
so huge, it was because
it was so unusual for books
to create something new
and enticing, because for
so long, we've buried their
impact within mounds
and mounds of obscurity,
so that, sure, people will
read, but only because
they consider it
a cultural necessity.

It's the same thing
that happened to poetry,
which has become such
an isolated activity
(which, again, DFW observed),
it might as well not be
taking place at all,
or in secretive cults,
for anyone cares.

It's just not relevant,
and that's what we've
done to it ourselves.

That's the sort of thing
that really needs
to be addressed,
or I will continue
to be depressed...

Book Terrors...! I

More poetry inspired by DFW:

It's uncomfortable to suggest
that literate reading is somehow
in danger when I'm not sure
it's ever really been in fashion.

I believe that we've always been
far more interested in popular
material, and that's how it
all got started in the first place,
what the bards sang about.

The problem seems more,
to me, about the extreme
abundance of such material,
that everyone can get this
stuff published, and that
there's no room and hardly
any real attention outside
out ladies reading circles
to anything that might
actually challenge you.

We start it in school,
scaring students into
thinking there are right
and wrong ways
to read the serious kind,
sober minds that must
be suppressed in order
to forget how much
of a pain it was
the first time around.

The problem with literate
reading and writing is
that it's stuck in the same
traps as everything else,
exclusive, constricting circles
that don't know what they have
and therefore hurt more
than help what they're
fighting to save.

But as I said,
the situation is
not as dire
as it seems.

But we are all
alarmists.

To His Coy Mistress

(Sue me, dead white poet, I like the title)

The only real version of romance
that I've gotten to enjoy
are the women I've had
the pleasure to dance with,

oh, not real dancing,
but the metaphorical kind,
where the only movement
is a game of mental chess,
which I suppose I must
thank them for, because
I do enjoy that sort of thing,
and this is the only real way
I get to do that.

Such interested parties
seem to come rather
plentifully, because,
rather secretly, I think
that's the kind of everyday
magic that romantics
are looking for, maybe
not the sweeping off
of feet that people seem
to believe in, but
the kind that can be
practiced to no significant
harm, so long as it's
amusing. Now,

I may be wrong about that,
and maybe that explains
a lot of things, but for now,
I will continue to indulge
this delusion.

Samaritan Snare

I sorry, but there's really
nothing more idiotic
than trying to do
the right thing without
actually thinking it
all the way through.

I much prefer an
analytical approach,
one that calculates
the actual benefits
to all involved, rather
than the one that
merely appears
to be good.

I'm a walker, and yes,
I understand among
many other things
it's easy to find people
who can't do that
very intelligently,
but to give credit
where it's valuable,
how about stopping
to wonder if whether
it's really worth anyone's
time to try and give me
the right of way, when
if you just went, we
would both benefit
exactly as it should
have played out.

David Foster Wallace,
to go back to him,
believes it's inevitable
to depend on some sort
of domineering leadership,
and that's another thing
I vehemently disagree
with him on.

To my philosophy,
that kind of reasoning
is the same as
the samaritan snare,
the belief that assinine
thinking actually
making its own
kind of sense.

Leaders only exist
to help guide us -
I would more properly
call anyone who aspires
to such a position
a guardian, but then
where would be
the glory?

It wouldn't be as
prestigious, just
as doing the unnecessary
good deed would
not make you feel
good about your own
supposed charity.

Well, we don't need
charity, and we don't
need greedy leaders,
all we need
is a little common sense.

12 Marks

These are some of the superstitious marks
I try to remember along one of the final
stretches on my hour+ walk to work:

I. the metal wheel rims someone
used as part of a fence, and recently
covered with wire gating, thanks
to new puppies, on S. Hancock

II. 1135 Rockwood, where the Mr. Roboto/
Tin Man/Woodsman/Nick (as I've variably
called him, in part thanks to my new
renewed enthusiasm for Oz) hangs
from the top of the porch

III. the phallic crack that seems
to have weathered noticeably
over the past few months

IV. 1125 Rockwood, where the terriers
guard the inside of the picture window

V. Chamberlin Academy on Slater,
where the events board must be observed

VI. the sneakers hanging
from the power lines on the same avenue;
there had briefly been a second pair

VII. 1106 Florence, where
there's a green ramp, which I
only noticed recently
(green being my favorite color)

VIII. 1101 Florence, the brick house
with its guardian ladybug

IX. 1065 Florence, right next
to te brick house, ith guardian ants

X. 1059 Florence, the infamous
"Not For Sale" car rotting
into the dirt driveway

XI. 1057 Florence, with its collection
of aging cars, right next to "Not For Sale"

XII. 1037 Florence, which is
indicative of how ephermal
all these landmarks are, because
it's a house that was for sale,
at least when I started taking
this route, seemingly for
the longest time, but has now
been occupied for so long,
I started confusing it with
a similar house a little earlier
on the avenue

Sleeping Dogs

There's nothing more peaceful
about a dog than the sleeping state.

Sometimes, when I'm looking
at a sleeping dog, I think
that dogs are best when
they're sleeping.

I know that's not very kind,
and really, dogs are very charming,
but they never look better
than when they're asleep.

They seem to reach
their most noble state.

It's also cute
to hear them snore,
or to see them squirm,
and to speculate
as to the cause.

Is it some happy dream,
so lovely treat,
or perhaps a fitful hunting?

I don't like the barking,
but as to the running,
I think that's second best.

I don't care to think of dogs
as our guardians - why the hell
make them our best friend
and bodyguard at the same time?

No, they're too friendly,
and far too kindly,
in a sweet and restful
repose.

Rich People

The problem with rich people is they
mistakenly believe everyone wants
to live like them.

***

The pseudo riche
are drunk on their
class model, crumbling
like a house of cards
with no real support
at its base and
the stock market
as its bored game.

Living the New Fade

Here’s how to define the New Fade:
it’s the Age of Mouldwarp,
in which everything new is
being worn into old very quickly,
so that it’s very hard to keep up.

That’s it, really,
that’s your whole
explanation right there.
Everything else is
in the details.

Imagine, as David Foster Wallace does,
this phenomenon as what
you can view on your
television, but take away
what I perceive to be
his cynicism, because
as a citizen of this Age,
of Mouldwarp and Entertainments,
I view it as opportunity,
not like the American Dream,
but rather the chance to step
beyond that, to wake the
sandman and explore
the Metaphysics of Value,
to shatter all the old
expectations and forge
an Age of Possibility.

I don’t know what Peter Ackroyd
was thinking, but when
he first coined the term
Mouldwarp (or at least
as far as I can tell),
he seemed to grasp
exactly what the New Fade was;
he let the Glass Walls Be
and he watched as Smiley
toiled in the field, because
that’s what needs to be done,
theoretically the last time
anyone will really be able
to tell the difference
between reality and
what the Great Bird of the Galaxy
saw when he hitched the wagon train
to the stars.

I’ve been struck, recently,
by how Rowling and Clarke
produced a new age of magic
(which Ackroyd sees
as the successor to Mouldwarp,
some three hundred years hence,
right before all our present
knowledge becomes a jumble,
a sphinx, guarding the knowledgeable
from the ignorant, as all
good stories do, where the
idea of imagination
comes from) where no
males have bothered,
conjuring Potter and
Norrell and Strange,
masters all of the art
of rediscovering lost things
almost by accident
(if careful study
may be called that),
are all themselves
male. What that says,
I don’t know.

The New Fade is an age
that seeks to eliminate
and illuminate,
cross-pollinate,
create a new state
that does not
recognize the ability
to ignore new things
simply to mollify the old.

It is not meant simply to howl
against perceived injustices,
but it spins like a widening gyre,
and it sings of itself,
and in the valley of Elah,
where the mad god Ellah waits,
forever perched between
a constant battle of good and evil,
which can be overlooked
but never underestimated.

In the New Fade,
it’s possible to
walk in grey lines,
which are the blurs
between black and white,
yin and yang,
to everyone become
a bodhisattva,
because there are
no longer limitations,
only invisible
barriers meant to be
pushed aside,
dream states
to waken from,
games of chance
to play, whether
you understand the rules
or not; you can be mad
if you lose, because
there are always
other pursuits.

In the New Fade,
you can watch as
others cling to
their old rules,
the ones quickly becoming
irrelevant.

In the New Fade,
there are no classes,
only those struggling
to maintain them.

In the New Fade,
there are First Worlds
and Second Worlds
and Third Worlds,
but there is a far better
fight now to abolish
them than ever before.

Instead of exploiting
everyone, there is war
to try and set it right;
is the price so high
to condemn those
going about this
selfishly?

What would be the point in that?

It’s the New Fade;
this too shall pass.

Life’s not perfect
in the New Fade;
I never meant to
suggest that,
but where would
you rather live,
where there is
possibility and hope
or where it’s
interesting to talk about,
where it might make an
interesting story,
but a misery to
actually be?

The New Fade is like
a challenging story,
which few might
actually appreciate,
but is far better
and more likely to
be remembered
than the most popular and
bestselling material.

The New Fade is
memory, that aspect
in all of us that
sees death as something
that brings an end,
rather than as a challenge,
and memory is our
effort to meet it,
in whatever way we can.

The New Fade is the culmination
of every doomsday prophecy.

The New Fade is the End Times.

The New Fade is 2012;
writing this in 2010,
yes I repeat, the New Fade
is 2012 -

It is a cycle,
and in that sense,
I do agree that
Tolkien was a genius,
that all he spent his time
on, when he labored
on everything that
wasn’t The Hobbit
or The Lord of the Rings,
it was fruitful scholarship.

The New Fade will be,
in hindsight, an Index,
just another page of history,
something to glance over
and probably forget all about,
how important it was,
how quick, how fleeting;
indeed, every bit the
quickened pace its
name is meant
to suggest.

It is every bit
ephemeral.

It can be blown out
like a candle,
it is as fragile
as an alliance
of musicians,
like the Beatles,
or the lease on life
of Mozart, why
so many of the greatest minds
live fast and die young,
scrambling to complete
themselves.

Maybe baby;
no, for sure!

It’s why so many
great talents are
overlooked; yes,
observed, but passed by
as the search continues,
because the New Fade
is hungry, far hungrier
than can be sated.

Is it any wonder
that we live in such
a robust time
for waistlines?

You will find the great girth of Henry VIII here!

The New Fade comes with clews,
which tie the masts of the pirate ship,
and we’re all playing the game of larceny,
as we dance to the beat
of whatever we’re listening to now.

It’s simple economics.

The only conceivable
problem is trying to
maintain the Self in the New Fade,
because that’s both the risk
and reward to be had.

Common Sense IV.

It's hard to have Alex Karev tact
in a tactless world.

It's hard not to be Gregory House,
who has all the respect and still
thought too forthright.

It's hard to live in a world
with no tact, because
Alex Karev is the devil.

Common Sense III.

The only thing
worth fighting for
is common sense.

Common Sense II.

A boss is an employee
with a big head, and
only a veneer of
common sense.

Common Sense I.

I swear, I didn't know
I was a goddamn wizard
until I started using
magic that befuddled
and bewitched colleagues
and customers in a bookstore.

Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself

It's strange to consider
how someone defines
themselves, because
that's what a lot of
our existence ends
up being about.

It can sometimes
seem as simple as
the labels "rich"
and "poor," but
on the everyday
average, most
people are really
thinking in more
subtle terms,
their likes and
dislikes, of which
there are so many
as to make it useless
to try and index here.

The point is, it
becomes still more
strange when you
begin to consider
that the way you
view yourself
really is far more
subjective than
you can begin
to consider yourself.

It's the problem
of existence,
the existential angst,
that bothers so many
people, why we ever
consider death at all,
why we fear it, why
we think of some
lives as wasted
or so significant,
what distinguishes
our perceptions
of happiness
from those of
sadness.

You know who
you are (or, at
least, really
ought to) but
for other people,
it's an entirely
different matter.

That's why it's such
a great game to
track celebrity,
because it seems
to be the sport
where we convince
ourselves that we
have an excellent
chance of really
knowing a complete
stranger.

How often are
we successful
in that pursuit?

I wonder if there's
a branch of study
about that?

Anyway, it's
a fun thing
to think about,
and maybe even
might help define
yourself, if you
were looking
for something.

Quiche

That's another thing
I'd like to try for no
other reason than
Jeff Smith inadvertantly
made it sound so
appealing.

(Stupid, stupid
rat creatures...)

The Uninformed Observer

There's nothing so pernicious
as a person asked for an
opinion and gives one
without being the least bit
informed about the subject at hand.

It's the same as leaders who
govern themselves by the standard
of being strongly advised
against strong opinions.

I don't understand why
we've allowed ourselves
to believe those with
the most power ought
to be the "least offensive."

I understand that it's
good to have someone
in authority who is
capable of being diplomatic,
but when you instead
choose that person
only on the basis that
they won't rock the boat,
then what you're really
building is a boat
that can hardly be expected
to withstand even
the tiniest of storms.

One wave and they're gone;
who cares how friendly they are?

That's the reason why
we find ourselves in a
continual economic
bear-and-bull tug,
because everyone's
too drunk on their
own stupidity to notice
that there are smarter
ways to do things.

People should be able
to do what they're hired
to do. Right?

Jovo

Jovo,
it certainly
was glad
to know you,
but I'm
basically
a pessimist.

I don't know
that we'll get
that chance.

Casa Bonita

How to explain
your excitement
over something
that is itself
derived from
excitement that
was exhibited by
a TV show (that
pretty much mocks
everything - South
Park)? That's
not hype or buzz,
Mr. King, just
a wacky little
contagion, one
you're happy to get.

It's a great place
to visit if you're
there for the fun
of it.

Strong Opinions Are Strongly Discouraged

If a cat were to be said to have all the curiosity in the world,
then it might be supposed that the typical leader has none.

WMD (Why so Mad, Dude?)

Truth be told,
I actually feel
proud that I
live in an age
where it can
at least be
argued that
war has been
turned into
something
that attempts
to correct
injustices,
rather than
support petty
land schemes
and bickering.

If America is
to have any
legacy at all,
it shall be this:

that it came
into the world
kicking and
screaming,
and kept on
doing so, without
resorting to
mere anarchy.

I think
on the whole,
we've got
a fairly good
record.

Why'd You Have To Call It "Green Zone" (Because That's My Favorite Color)?

I don't mean
to continue
harping on it,
because for
me, the Iraq War
stopped being an
issue when my
sister made her
successful tour,
and so did her
husband,
and then I saw
The Hurt Locker,
which went on
to win the Oscar.

I stopped caring
about other
people's opinions,
right around they
stopped being
able to affect
G's approval
ratings.

What could
possibly have
been the point
of continuing?

I knew what I
thought, and
that was it,
especially
when I learned
how impassioned
a man like
Christopher Hitchens
had been in defense
of the whole thing.

But then came
Green Zone,
a movie marketed
to lure Matt Damon's
Jason Bourne fans,
but was really
intended to
regurgitate
all the old
wounds the left
liked to pick at
for five years,
their ideas about
why they had
all the right
in the world
to protest the war,
how no WMDs
were ever found.

Throughout this film,
it's made clear that
even those, at least
from this perspective,
who were charged
with the search
at the start of the war,
the military, were
skeptical, or evasive,
or downright
posturing over lies,
never once suggesting
that these weapons,
no matter the bad
intelligence anyone
might have relied on,
had been free to
move wherever
they liked, for
months and years
(perhaps decades?).

...I don't want to
go over it again.

I want this chapter
to end, to leave it
for posterity and
perspective to
examine anew,
when we no longer
have agendas
(except the new ones
old politicians will make),
when history will
be a matter for
historians, and
not histrionics.

But as the title
suggests, my only
regret is that
the color green
must be impugned
in all of this.

Was that
really necessary?

What did this color do?

Leave the reference
alone and find
another metaphor,
perhaps in the valley
of Elah, where the fierce
god Ellah resides
and still, even
in this hour, abides.

Don't Blacklist Me For Disagreeing With You (or, How Awesome Can You Really Be?)

Y'know, I got to
thinking about
why I became
such a dismal
failure of a poet
when I had such
a great start,
and ended up
returning to
the same thought
I've had for a while:

They knew.

They knew straight
from the start
that even though
I seemed to be a
poet, I didn't think
the right way.

"The right way,"
in this instance,
meaning a particular
political view, which
even eight years,
even now, would mean
on the left end of
the spectrum.

What poets really love,
I've come to suspect,
is a ready sense of
community, so
for the two years
I spent being a
part of a community,
they were getting
ready to forget
I was ever there.

Not literally.

Jennifer Moxley,
she still remembers me,
at least, and I guess
favorably as much
as anything else.

But even then,
I didn't slide into
what the other kids
were doing. I didn't
jibe with their
thinking, what they
considered to be
their poetry scene.

It became really easy
to eject me, even
when I was clinging
to the last footholds
of that community.

They wanted me out.

I just didn't fit in
(anymore).

And since then?

I don't know,
maybe I'm just
cynical, but
I don't think
it's been too easy
trying to get
back in,
because
this time,
they know.

They know
I don't belong
in their community.

They don't want me,
no matter what
I could do
for them.

Ain't that swell?

Those Who Can't Capitalize

Those who can't capitalize
must point with their eyes.

Agenda

It strikes me that most
of the most irrational
people are pushing
an agenda they believe
is the most rational
thing in the world.

***

The reason I respect
J.J. Abrams so much
is that he seems to
gravitate toward ideas
that comment on the
nature of agendas.

On Alias, it was in
the world of spies, but
really about an
obsession with a
renaissance man called
Milo Rambaldi. Where
would everyone have been
if Arvin Sloane hadn't so
aggressively pursued
this agenda?

On Lost, we're learning
how everything pivots
around the conflict
between Jacob and the
Man in Black, and ho
if everyone weren't
so busy with their
own agendas, a lot of
things were be a lot
more simple.

With Fringe, wouldn't
it be nice if Walter Bishop
had never crossed into
a parallel world, thereby
initiating a war, a private
agenda that has seen
legitimate science run
amok with agendas? But,
he was only trying to
save his son. Look where
that got him...

***

Agendas are such a funny
thing; they can warp everything
around them without anyone
even realizing it. Wouldn't
it be nice if everyone
wore a sign around their necks
explaining what exactly
their agenda was, so there
would be less confusion?