We Should See Other Blogs

1.

I wish I had not
so zealously erased
all the hard drives.

2.

I wish there was a way
to capture the monotone
characters and
write them down.

3.

I wish that I had more
but not too much more
than I have now.

is it so much to ask

one unadulterated
moment of joy

unscripted
unfiltered
full speed

unpunctuated
by humdrumming
mechanics

Each time, it’s like running
toward the edge of a
cliff.

I’m not sure how to make
you

mundane.

I’m not sure if
I want
to.

The camera speaks in bit and pieces:
definitions and lack of lines.
When did you become
a few small revisions
of yourself?

Not long ago you could
have broken the mould,
disrupted and remade
anything.

The camera swivels and
you instead peer through.
The names you chose
swirl around your feet.
Eye of the storm,
eclipsed.

Your greatest work:
A river runs through it
to shape the landscape.
Methodical remodelling
in relentless silt.

The camera again swivels
and you are stuffed into a noun,
empty, crumpled, leached.
Broken, like a mould.
Disrupted and remade.

Your small temples emptied
of worshippers and then of gods.

Your greatest work:
a recording of voices,
a photograph of faces,
a video of movements,
a hammer and its nails.

You are in none of them. Or,
you are in them all.

Two roads in a wood, divergent.
I could take both, given time.
Or neither. Set up
shop and mime

a man weighing a
couple options.
Comical indecision,
caution.

Still, now there
are four paths to choose.
No matter what,
you lose.

You, a painting of yourself.
A list of artists.
Form & perspective.
Lines that converge
in the distance, perhaps.

An observer draws something.
A list of qualities.
Thought & perspective.
Satisfaction that converges
on your ignorance of it.

After the war I felt nothing.
I came home to the same
as it had ever been.
Nothing changed.

I breakfasted on scrambled eggs
and maple bacon. I shaved.
I mundaned. I humdrummed.
I fell asleep and dreamed

that a corn field rippled
like a sheet of wind and
woke to eddies of tall grass.
I mowed the lawn.

As if you’re inverted she says.
Six months she says.
Everything different she says.
She says and says and says.

After the war I felt nothing.
I came home to the empty
as it had ever been.
Nothing missing.

Forgives all abuses forgiveness
Knows no boundaries forgiveness
Can’t be beat forgiveness
Can’t be bought forgiveness
Forgets nothing but the bad forgiveness
All the great men have it forgiveness
Blessed are they that forgiveness
Couldn’t take notes if it tried forgiveness
Stops wars forgiveness
Beats cancer forgiveness
Wrote your mother’s recipes forgiveness
Knows all the lottery numbers forgiveness
Caught a marlin this big forgiveness
My what long arms you have forgiveness
Wrote that fable forgiveness
Invented the internet forgiveness
Always clips coupons forgiveness
Single-handedly stopped the big one forgiveness
Escaped prison with a makeshift paper-clip forgiveness
Wrote the longest line and then some just for the hell of it forgiveness
Invented swearing but doesn’t forgiveness
Sings kumbaya to orphans forgiveness
Is that even a word forgiveness
Has 18% returns forgiveness
Has to end somewhere forgiveness

It’s the same sad story:

The gifted horse,
the curse,
the sudden,
the inevitable
invasion.

I deny there’s a problem.
How could there be a problem?
I deny a possibility,
a weakness to exploit.

I deny a tiny man rounding
a capital h shouting obscene
truths. What is truth?
I deny it, convincingly.

I deny a kettle crowing on the hill,
a tiny man making t, snarling,
I deny giants. I calculate density.
I perform experiments. I am methodical,
I am undeniable precision, I am perfect
shapes and weights and ratios.
Therefore. Therefore. Therefore I deny.