Confucius say: movement 6

1. Remember the physics

of happiness when you

find yourself ingrained,

deep in the thicket of

pitying amusement at

the gerbils on their little

treadmills, working so

hard just to stay in one

locus of stubby futility–

 

2. –buh-but wait just a damn

minute now, you can’t just

begrudge them the eternal

exercise, oh no smug sir, not

when you too are deep

in the thrall of addiction,

the turbid pleasure of scorn

that keeps drawing you back,

yes, you the assholeholic,

heyyyyy, yeah, that’s you!

 

3. Lead gerbil would like

a word with you, and you

know that these rather

quite gussied-up, officious

rodents in little bow ties

and spectacles have always

been your weakness, oh

yes, I’ve seen your Internet

history, it’s that and the porn.

 

4. Those gerbils sure are

adorable though, right? With

their little paws chasing an

empty dream–

 

5. Squeak, you’re doing it again,

squeak, squeak, come on man,

when did happiness become the

territory of the sap, land of the twee

and home of the gullible? 

 

6. Th-there has to be an equation,

a philosophy, 10 steps, uh, 12

steps, a warm gun, a list, a derivation,

a proof, a sequence of chords, an

array of parallel lines, a wallpaper

color, a 4-door sedan, a way to

win it, win it, win, win, win, win–

 

7. Squeak, who’s the sucker now, asshole?

Confucius say: movement 5

Man stuck in pantry have ass in jam,

but, fastidious logician that he is, can’t

help but reason his way to advantages.

In his solitude, he will never have to lie

again, save to the ants, and each morning

he will rise with yeast and sorrow to the

smells of fresh loaves and grapey esters.

After enough time (and there is time

enough in here), his eyes will become

glassy, his skin translucent, tongue

brittle. Soon, he’ll be sufficiently monstrous

to satisfy even his lonesome heart, but

alas, too blind to see the truth that oozes

up between his toes, dark and fragrant.

Confucius say: movement 4

Dear Confucius:

Sometimes I just want to lie in the dirt

and smoke some excellent chronic and

listen to Bob Dylan and sort of like twitch

a little bit every so often such that passing

beasts will know I am still alive. Tell my

mom to stop worrying about me.

 

Toking Wildly in Tulsa

 

TWIT: I have heard it said that poetry is found

not only in the sunlight’s reflection off the obol

in your grandfather’s passive, wordless mouth,

but also in the flight of the salmon upstream.

Also, here is my phone number if you want to

get high as shit with me and discuss social justice.

[redacted]

 

Dear Confucius:

I consistently masturbate fifteen to twenty-two

times a day, on each occasion thinking of a different

James Bond girl. So, does the original Casino

Royale count for these purposes?

 

Bad-Ass Snake Tamer Around Raleigh-Durham

 

BASTARD: Never in waking, for even as the heart is so

flighty and full of life, no more held in one’s hand than

sunrise or the nervous tears of anticipation of the chrysalis,

it is also, so they say, substantially less prone to chafing.

Confucius say: movement 3

the digital fool sits neatly ensconced

in his palace of faux-sophisticated

academic affect and asks me, as though

from a great distance, what can anybody

truly give us that has any deep significance,

that is any more than a series of maneuvers

in our railroad switch cyborg brains

 

oh simple binary reductionist, would that

all things were as easily shrouded and

confounded in your facile metatextual

bullshit, but once you have held that on/off

construction in your hand, watched the light

creep through the brilliant, angular amethyst

corridors, actually bothered to care and feel

without aloof condescension, well, then you

might understand, my dear

Confucius say: movement 2

Man who fart in church sit in own pew,

but he just may have the most magnificent

Imago Dei, yes, you heard me right, Miss

Tight-Lipped Tile-Examining Reverence,

he casts God in his own image, one with

the mutual respect afforded brothers: sure,

they beat the shit out of each other every

once in a while, but there’s a love there,

and once you know another truly, sincerely

for those many long years of depressions

great and small, well, you get to realizing

that maybe they really don’t mind the small

stuff; maybe you can just blame it on the dog.

Confucius say: movement 1

After many years of fastidious and clever

searching/investigation, devising an eloquent

experiment in which the control watermelon

is left in the grocery store and the experimental

watermelon is purchased, brought home, and

thrown off of a rather tall bridge, cross-referenced

with that dream journal you’ve been keeping for

several months now, and don’t forget that four

hour literature search you ran trying to correlate

regional marijuana usage, incidence of alien

abduction reports, and pet ownership (seemed

like a better idea when you yourself were engaging

in some regional marijuana usage), well, you may

find that, even if the truth is “out there” in any

concretely locate-able way, it is probably just

significantly easier to invent your own, start

talking, and see who winds up believing.