Some Neighbors

Oaks

Queen of Content

while on the surface it’s meaningless or harmless drivel
but there remains a nagging feeling of something buried
it could be a trick or it could be a trap
maybe it’s nothing maybe it’s everything
maybe there is nothing maybe there is everything

perhaps there is some hope
art is some hope
hope is all we need
hope and all we need more of is science

Penelope Demetrius and Helen
Irony’s irony of hipster households

First day of dying
Another day of dying
Another way of dying
First way of dying

hipsters are nothing more than a hobo camp
of smart kids with awkward names
from over-degreed literate-wealthy families
who could support contrived and insufferable indulgences
while also justifying its existence the entire time

otis zone ice cream cone

 Grand Opening

AJ

How & Why

So yeah here we are again
where on one hand it is exactly just the very same place
as it is always (down here)
but on the other hand “the very same place”
feels uniquely vulnerable and final
each time more and more as the years progress

Had I any wherewithal I would already recognize the patterns
hows and whys vis-à-vis up and down cycles
since just beneath the thin finely cultivated veneer
lie deficiencies of heart brain and nerve
the benefits of self-awareness could have balanced against
the chronic (and repeated) toll of these tiny suicides

The very worse outcome is largely insignificant
a pebble’s ripple on some unknown pond somewhere
witnessed by no one ever
and failing to answer the two most fundamental questions
Why?
How?

Hoodlum

Upper Saddle River

Neighbors

100616-1

no panic yet but
there is plenty of opportunity
for that later

ample time for
eons of torturous
panic and regret

running out of time
to throw that long
promised switch

bait and switch
defines everything
learned in life

a life mostly
wasted under
uncertain waters

as obviously
flat out wasted
as reaction

a biography offered
as cautionary tale
obviously

The Truth Is

There are few remaining truths
Save very complicated basics
Dictated by residuals of a very big bang
Everything else is created
As something to do during refractory

We are all lonely deplorable and desperate
Teetering always on the razor’s edge of collapse
For most of our brief existence
Structures and systems are the hard evidence
Of indictable phonies

Yet through constant distraction
Periodic moments of intense beauty appear
Unsolicited and specially delivered
In undocumentable glory
Before our own private eyes

For the extraordinarily fortunate
Our variable ratio schedules
Reward just enough
To keep us in the game
The universe’s conditioning as blessing