You are not the heroes
you think yourselves to be,
dreaming up perfect worlds
that can never be.
Anyone can picture
a far-fetched perfection,
and groan of other's faults
with dead-eyed disaffection.
Stand on a hill and howl.
Don't wait for the perfect moon.
Gather your thoughts,
& wash the:
cliches,
doublespeak,
technocratic jargon, and
weasel words
out of mind & mouth.
(Those shitty words, phrases,
and qualifiers are heavy,
and will weigh down
your message &
keep it from sailing.)
Then, belt it out.
Let your words fly.
Express your authentic self.
Huff & Puff,
and let the bricks fall
where they may.
The headline read, "The World 's at War!" It turns out "with halitosis." I couldn't bring myself to read more. I don't need no bad breath gnosis.
There never was a Golden Age,
a time much better than right now.
But playing martyr 's all the rage:
to think our world the garbage scow --
whose stinking mass forever grows.
Lest you think that I'm saying these
are times of pure and sweet repose,
Please, let me put your mind at ease:
These times are best. These times are worst.
(To blatantly steal from Dickens.)
This twist is just how we are cursed
to shriek like that sky fall chicken.
Each of us lives a life improbable, the gift of an ancestor who struggled through some terror which killed others. We each have an iron impulse to maintain a cracking grip on life, but some won't ever be pried away, growing like the stunted pine that juts from the mountainside: gnarled but indestructible. Live improbably with your life improbable.
Everything is happening
somewhere in that city.
Blocks of block buildings
broken into smaller blocks,
in turn into smaller ones.
Those blocks -- rooms --
are the city's unit of interest.
So many rooms,
so much potential for the:
-nefarious,
-virtuous,
-ill-advised,
-hideous,
-hopeful,
-hilarious...
Someone is hanging
from a rafter,
waiting to be found.
Thousands are masturbating.
AI surveys the porn they surf,
making new genres in real time
based on unfulfilled search terms...
In one room, a scientist
figured out a cure for cancer
in a burst of inspiration,
but by the time she'd found a pen,
she'd lost it -- no trace remaining.
She then convinced herself
she'd never really had it...
but she had.
Everything that can happen
has happened,
will happen,
and is happening
in the city.
Our plight is craving perfection
in an imperfect world:
imperfectly perceived,
imperfectly performed,
imperfectly programmed.
To have a mind that can imagine perfection,
but never attain it
creates a special hell vehicle.
I've seen in ordinary eyes a special twinkling glow. In rough and sinewy muscle I've seen a grace in throe. From rotund torsos, I have seen a lithesome prance or strut. I've seen a thing called character, in schnozzes that kink or jut. If beauty below the surface, it finds you splendor-blind. Then defect 's not in the object but in the viewer's mind.
Why, who makes much of a miracle? As to me I know of nothing else but miracles.
Walt Whitman, “miracles”
The American contempt for statues and ceremonies, the boundless impatience for restraint…
Walt whitman, “Song of the Broad-axe”
I exist as I am, that is enough. If no other in the world would be aware I sit content. And if each and all be aware I sit content.
walt whitman, “Song of myself”
I am not the poet of goodness only, I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness also.
walt whitman, “song of myself”
If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred.
Walt whitman, “i sing the body electric”
NOTES: Numerous editions exist between the 1855 and 1892 (deathbed) edition. It’s available for free on Project Gutenberg at: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1322
A construction worker once told me -
for a building to last -
depends not so much on
its materials,
nor even on its foundations,
but rather on the building being
in balanced strain throughout.
A building stays up when its
parts press into each other firmly,
or pull at each other strongly,
but never too out of balance.
This web of unseen forces
allows the building stand solid
against any huffing, or puffing,
the world might throw its way.
A democratic society works the same.
It must have an establishment.
It must have a counterculture.
And these two elements must
constantly pull at each other
or mash into each other:
tension & compression,
compression & tension,
tug-of-war & sumo.
If one side is unopposed, or too weak,
the state will crumble into some kind of
authoritarianism by another name.
Destroy your enemies at your own peril.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 