Summer Ending

Summer ending always feels like leaving,
A hollowness well aware of currently being drained
A yearning for a false past and yada yada…
Nostalgia doesn’t pay the rent,
The fucker,
Kick her out
All her checks would bounce anyways
And she makes you use bad metaphors

There’s an urge to go walk the cool night air,
As if I will discover a group of lost friends around a fire
In some mysterious backyard
Or fall into a canoe and ride it deep onto the lake
And look at those brilliant specks in the sky
And try to convince yourself of a sublime experience

Street lights and porch chatter don’t cut it,
They don’t.
I don’t want this blind speculation,
To fill this hole with a hollow object.
Even though it does,
It does
Help.

I can find beauty in anything,
And an adventure, no matter how small,
Can be a cure overall.
But it shouldn’t
It shouldn’t.

Why not?

Imagine a dog.
Give it meat,
But it’s not meat,
But to the dog,
It tastes like meat
Smells like it,
Looks like it,
Does the same thing to the body that meat does,
But it’s not meat,
It’s plastic,
Perfect
Scientific
Plastic

The only thing that makes it not meat,
Is that it’s not meat.
But the dog can’t tell
And it don’t matter

Does it matter?
Yes,
Because it’s not meat.

Extrapolate this to humans.
Google Puntam’s Twin Earth

So,
This feeling of ending.
This wanting
This cure.
Where is the meat?
And does it even matter?
If it ain’t in the head then where could it be?
And how do I find it.

Godel’s incompleteness theorem

That old philosophy parlor trick,
Which heroes used as a weapon
To make Cyclops’ foam at the mouth.

“We have no weapons,
What are we supposed to use?
Our wits?”

Oh sly paradox,
Leaving us constructing shapes out of fog
Or sitting calmly
And waiting for it to land on our shoulder.

“I should warn you,
Destroyer of man,
That everything I say is a lie”

Let’s just sweep it out
And get rid of it,
Who says you need a base to build?
Let’s do it sideways so it doesn’t touch the ground.

“Why can’t the barber,
Who shaves everyone who doesn’t shave themselves,
Be female?”

Let’s start to compare our mistakes to machines,
Find identity in our faults,
Let’s all lie holding hands on top of the hole
So one can walk over and not fall in.

“Hey, didn’t we lose a chess game to a computer?
Oh well what the hell,
We will get them next time”

A Very Serious Man

“Man’s ladder to the stars makes him great”
So we say about half-way up,
remember that old-joke?
Not the fall that kills you,
it’s the landing.
But don’t worry
there is plenty to grab on to
on your way down.

It is a burden indeed
All this unnecessary freedom.
But we can always find blame in the foundation,
the first cause, the ball dropper.
This god not merely rolling dice
but keeping his eyes closed even after they are set,
just wanting to keep playing.

So bleak it must be funny,
because what else could it be?

Debating free will as if it made a difference.
We wallow in our most shiny delicious gift.

The fact that we know we are dying of it,
is the only thing that lets us know we are still alive.

Tracks

So much of my poetry wants to be about the extending nature of roads,
About how their hard concrete makes for the perfect barrier between man and nature,
How there is no quicker way to and from adventure.

You can see the infinite and impossible in front of you
Innocence and sweet nostalgia behind
And, of course, beauty or truth to the sides.

So mercifully easy and human.

But what about train-tracks?
How they don’t curve like roads do,
Cut right through cities or woods,
A blunt and painful separation,
That looks like an open trip to the abyss
Rather than a freeing journey into the universe.

Why don’t I write poetry about;
Young girls who spend to long staring down the tracks,
Or boys who balance on the railway beams,
Or unshaven men who see it as the isolated short cut they desire,
Or repressed and daring young artists,
Who believe they have a message,
for the more appreciative passengers.

As a kid, we used to set pennies to be pressed by trains,
Or bike along it and marvel how
How it cut us off from the world
Unlike city roads.

Maybe because we see train-tracks just for trains,
That’s why they have this mystery
Roads take all comers,
But tracks only have room for dreamers.

El Topo

After letting Jodorowsky burrow into my skull:

Miracles are not by chance,
But instead
carefully calculated
and controlled beauty,
Chance is harsh and empty,
It’s beauty is only
That of an albino, or a pregnant midget.

To much perfection is stupidity,
Boring, repetitive and predictable
The enlightened hermit may not be lonely,
But is easily killed,
By he who anticipates the ignorance
Of one who makes no mistakes.

One can find love in the exchanging of souls,
Of knowing yourself as only the boundary
That keeps you from being the divine other,
But it will leave that other,
Squaking like a bird,
At your death.

You may know pain,
And how to let bullets pass,
But it is no match for those who
Choose to wear black,
And can see,
The perfect place to build a hole,
Which you can’t climb out.

Those who choose to be passive
Trading guns for butterfly nets,
Do so because
They catch butterflies
Or
Stop bullets better?
Tell me!

Who are you to leave your son behind,
For a half-hearted temptation,
To dream of glory that isn’t your own,
And only find the goal
In betrayal.

What about when you buried your favourite toy,
And were told to be a man,
Even though you were still naked.

Is there any hope for this town?
Who shoot freaks by default,
And are run by dreams of another,
more sensual flesh?

Remember when she jumped into that oasis of water,
And you made love to her in the sand?

What happened to her?

How did you know the tunnel was complete?

And where will your son abandon your baby?

The Bookstore

Upon hearing that ignorance was on sale cheap,
I went to the store to see what I could reap.

I believe it was said by Isaac Newton
That ignorance is grand illusion

And Albert Einstein did declare
That the ignorant person is more aware

I learned that the religious don’t really want to be saved
And that science gets too easily caught in a wave

That free will isn’t quite so dramatic
And technology might as well just be static

That beauty perhaps looks best in blood
And that faith must be chewed like cud

That God might, at best, be just justice
Or some sort of collective unconscious.

I searched and read, trying to block the gaps,
That apparently are from some evolutionary lapse.

The closer I get, the more I recede
Zeno would be pretty damn pleased.

So if all truth is, is a dance
Then you better fucking watch me prance

Tangled up in Blue [For Bob Dylan]

The endless skies in Saskatchewan,
Make me wonder about the need for tall buildings
And the need to constantly reinvent myself at each stage in my life.

The seduction of the New Start,
Always leaves me feeling guilty.

I read an article today on how cynicism and irony
Are leeching our culture away
And it called for innocence, purity, and, I guess, faith.

As one of a probable multitude,
Who always took my doubt as a sign of my intelligence,
It left me in stranded uncomfortably.

I’ve begun to grow scared of walking in isolation
And sustained thought.
Yet, still untrustworthy of the glowing screen,
I play on.

A Relationship

She told him that since she was disposed to unhappiness,
the least she could do was to be happy about it.

He told himself that she couldn’t die of broken heart,
But that shouldn’t stop her from trying.

My Mode on the Road.

This one is just for fun:

Empty highway,
Clear head,
Long way home,
To my bed.

Thumb out
Insides in
King of this road
Bring on the sin.

Whatever you want,
That’s what I’ll be,
A Bard or lost boy
For you to see.

I’ll tell you a tale
For a city or two
Lost in a bigger journey
Me and you.

Sometimes though…
Magic runs dry
And no choice in wild
But to lie.

Alone in the dark
Or in the rain
There is no meaning
To explain.

Warm up my thumb
Stick it out
Looking for resonance
Or about.

Clear sky
Blurry head
“Life is just waiting”
that’s what I said

On David Foster Wallace’s death

When I think about this,

I see him caressing the rope,

Running along its coarseness,

admiring its tautness when pulled tight.

Imagining his body a few feet above the ground,

slightly swaying, with the groan of the overhead beam

and silent squeal of the rope’s tension.

A final piece of art that no longer

ran parallel to reality.

 

I bet he planned out his last thought,

but then decided against it.