high school football
of high school
glories of high
the glories of
antecedents the glories
their antecedents the
of their antecedents
dozens of their
of dozens and
top of dozens
on top of
down on top
out down on
settled out down
disappointments
settled out
Scraping for a script,
Sparring for a spare scrap,
This sparking purist with perfect pores
(And miscellaneous other parts)
Dared the shrapnel and consuming pyres.
She strapped on her spurs but never stripped,
It upsetting proper peristalsis. This very purist,
Under her Parisian parasol, sat and sipped
Her sparkling cough syrup, warding off
Streptococci.
But in her strapless stripped dress, she was
Spied by an unscrupulous and fallen seraph,
From his parish recently banished for
Insincere practicing of perestroika and uneven
Consultation of scripture. This fell parasite
Peered her way through his periscope,
Preferring after all the unadvertised perks
Of surreptitiously pursuing inaccessible flames
In public parks, to coin an
Unsavory phrase.
Tyros
Come to terms with their
Turns on satirical rotisseries, retesting
Whether the
Rates at which the tires spin
Are uniform and informed by
Satyrs on sitars
And their thrashing rites.
But Horus'
Torus floats down the Nile under
Shading canvas tarps, while we're all
Munching powdery
Sugared tarts.
Come to reclaim a solemner
Realism: amorally
Under Amarillo's columnar skies with my
Unlimber umbrella, staring in--
Can I help it if
all these people
only want to swim in the
upper two millimeters
of the universe?
My first wife preferred to believe I hated her,
despite all absence of evidence. This
simplified matters considerably, though, like
seeking any necessity or benefit in finding
virtue in compromise. Build long enough on any
foundation, regardless of its
unwholesome fabrication, and you can't
revisit your assumptions lest all Creation come
crashing down.
Though I never
married my second wife, I think she was
really the first. She favors
the myth of absent forgetfulness, another
fairytale with its own
narcotic uses. But me,
I'm not like that.
Another go at it then, questing after the elusive metaphor. . . .
Dancing the sine wave, sidestepping, revealing, concealing. . . .
How can I tell you about this undercover life? I try to recall
the tale from literature, but I fall short. It must be there, of course ‑‑
all such painful tales are ‑‑ but it's not the sort of book I'd ever read.
More irony. . . .Bitter brew.
Shall I speak of madness? What else could possibly remain to be said
concerning that staple subject? Staple and stale, doing injustice to
madmen everywhere. Have you read the Book of Job?
A demanding read, surely, and with a dubious moral, or worse.
You'd think I could relate, at least in a superficial way, but: no.
You cannot accept ‑‑ yet! ‑‑ that we are all mad; we just can't all
recognize madness in the mirror so long as we remain transfixed
in all the fables we weave across long years, shielding ourselves from
cyclonal juggernauts of cruel, history-wracking metamorphosis.
This morning the air was cool and clear, and outside I could feel alive.
The sun's low rays slung through the rushes painted them a luminous,
luxuriant green to shock the world to its senses, but who now heeds
these primitive omens anymore? Who even pauses to notice them?
I was myself in flight from all the evils that men do, a deluge
in close pursuit behind me. We cannot escape forever. We must be
overtaken, swept away and sucked down in the flood, and us all
waiting for time to cut us away from the herd and pick us off.
The ferryman requires his fare.
There are these matters out of history that we all must strive
to avoid. The details differ for each of us, but the overall pattern's
consistent. I've shied away; I've tried; I've sometimes succeeded,
sometimes succumbed. This morning, strolling around the
glassy-smooth lake, I fell back full into the secret universe.
I know why: it's the paradisiacal garden that fusty old Job
never knew, that fantastic time when I was extraordinarily
happy again, the hiatus in the harrowing nightmare that
swept over the Earth fifteen years ago.
But how can I tell you about it? I cannot without yielding to betrayal,
and anyway, to you it could only be judged a sin, and I could never
prove it otherwise, never dissuade you from your virtuous disapproval.
Your righteous conclusions would remain, nevertheless, false, but
wholly unassailable. I know and understand. And so this
splintering life's destined to continue, unuttered and unabated.
But I think now, as I thought this morning, some memory of joy
reviving in my heart: Regardless. Anyway. No matter. I do. I do!
My God. My God. No matter
the verdict's solemnity and weight:
I do!
A quantumindeterminism comprises language's lifeblood,
pulsating, beatingcyclicaldriving. I reachedout, I
broke, I snapped the twig: contextual illuminance.
To break. To snap. End ofthe road. There are no
synonyms nor no reliable meanings, no onething.
It was a cold day, a gray day, and the layers
feedback, mutually inform, beating, pulsating,
pumping in nuanced shading, shading of graying.
Telomeric conservatism requires the meaning, the
hardedgedoutline determining, de termining, where it
ends, where it exactly fits. Terminus. Theend.
Amen.
But it doesn't fit. I reachedout, I extended my
hairy upper primate limb, orangutan orange, to
rip down to break off, to snap the twig, one twig
of tens, of hundreds, of deadends of
unlimberlimbytree.
Shaping little russianiconsinwords, eyes downcasts,
I can distinguish no futures from anypasts anymore.
'Twas a coldday and thesap was downdowndown,
rendering endering twiggytwigs stifflydrylysnappable
endable unbendable. Laconic? Then why. . . ?
Quantumindeterminism ripples tripple hillanddipple
through it all. Twiggywigs. Vibrate. I broke/I
snapped the twig, and the twig snapped, and
broke I back.
Like John McCain, many of those
early Republicans were none too keen on
A. Lincoln, threatening to bolt over
emancipation. But Sherman's
burning of Atlanta changed everything
relevant: economics, and political prospects.
Let us rejoice!
The Union's saved!
