Your life need not make sense

 

I recently had this one published in the newly reactivated Riggwelter many thanks to the incomparable Jon Kinsman.

Your life need not make sense

Origin story

We are foam on the surface
of the boil of evolution, and you are fitted,
crudely, in a survival-of-the-fittest-shaped hole
and although so many armchair Fascists suggest
this means your only valid role
is to beat, subdue and rape
this is not the case.
You need not be the wolf
(who are not like that anyway.)

Fittest never meant most buff
or supreme conqueror,
Darwin and consequent theorists
have always meant most suited to the day
and when the afternoon is spent
building box forts for grandchildren, then...

why Grandma, what strong genes you have...

Making a life

So you build a society
upon the froth and initially all you want
is edible roots and grains enough
for through the winter's bleak

but in a society people speak
or snub one another
and people start to own things
inherit
acquire that younger lover
on the side

and people hide
or worse take pride
in their tiny peccadillos
and before long
the heap is sorted
every person in their place
every foot
firmly in the face
of someone underneath
and you smile and say you are happy
with the boots
all pressing down.

Making a buck

I will trade these beaver pelts
for a new iPhone, I have I think
a ton of them
encrypted
with a blockchain and stored
in an envelope which I keep
beneath the mattress

and I earn them, of course,
on the gig economy
where nothing is forever
or even for the day
and why would you want a pension plan
why would you believe that you
or your nation
would ever last that long?

Coherence is not required

...as we stroll along the shore
salt sea-spray in our hair
and the five star hotel is still burning
over there
the currency we bought when we arrived
might now get us shot on sight
and who knows whether the street kitchen
we used for food tonight
will still exist tomorrow
or take my walking boots in payment

but this is a great holiday
axiom zero still holds:
we exist
and what more do you want?

 

NaPoWriMo 2023 - 13 - A Study of Political Developments in Europe from 1945 to the Present Day.

I think I will have to admit I have missed a few days of NaPoWriMo now. This is ignoring all prompts and just turning the surreality dial way up...

A Study of Political Developments in Europe from 1945 to the Present Day.

Performance note: to be recited in one breath without hesitation, deviation or passing out.

For those watching in black and white I was standing on the ceiling of the Arc de Triomphe eating my usual which is banana and eggplant pizza with a side order of irreconcilable longing and if you're in America you probably believe you know what eggplant is but in Europe eggplant refers to the sensation of driving a rented removals van rapidly through a long-abandoned mountain tunnel with one eye on the road and one eye nervous on the fuel gauge and anyway I was standing in the basement of Nelson's Column eating my usual which is banana and eggplant pizza with a side order of irreconcilable longing and you probably think that Nelson's Column is military but in fact it celebrates the decisive victory of the British Public over the checkout queue in Marks and Spencer and I was standing on the ceiling of my local post office eating my usual which is banana and eggplant pizza and you probably feel that by now you understand the role of the removals van but for those watching in black and white a removals van is like a pantechnicon and for those watching in black and white a removals van is quite like a panel truck and for those watching in black and white I was standing on the ceiling of my local meteorological office and eating my usual and it was raining and it had always been raining and I felt a sensation of irreconcilable eggplant and it was raining and it was pizza and it was cold.

NaPoWriMo 2023 - 9 - Taking it under advisement

(I have not skipped a couple, I kept them private because they fell out kinda personal...)

Taking it under advisement

the first rule of dealing-with-the-particular-thing-
the-thing-that's-secret-to-myself-and-that-
I-do-not-like-to-talk-about-
club, is we talk about it
that is the advice

at any rate,
that one sex blogger gives, documenting
how she's lived her life
radically reimagined
and somewhat exposed
these last five years

and been happier for it
who talks
about the dirty underside of her mind
the very not-talking being
what enabled
the "dirty" judgement to persist
and possibly it works for her

in some degree
because exhibitionism
which I so don't have

so I take the limited supply
of advice
as well intentioned but with a big
pinch of salt

and the advice I give is:

avoid magical thinking
--such as believing that the aforementioned
talking-about-the-unspeakable
can fix everything--
because it always seems like
if we could only address WXYZ
then everything would be lovely
in the garden

but this
is a failure
of imagination
and the post-WXYZ world is still a world

(or garden)

still messy and dirty and filled
with human beings, complex,
and not all well intentioned
and there was no way
that merely sorting out the WXYZ
was going to fix that

no, my advice is:

walk on the grass
whether the sign says otherwise or no
our pleasures are limited
and none of us know
when we'll go

bare feet on damp grass
your father running the sprinkler
but that was then and now you are the father
with no sprinkler
because ecology

and in this newer world in theory
sometimes you want but think you should not have

a Bakewell tart for example

of the more industrial kind
with solid sugar icing to at least
a quarter of an inch
but you can

because,
ultimately,
apart for those we choose ourselves
there are no rules.