MADE FOR YOU AND ME 1: hive Being (Stanzas 2016—part 32)
Let's workshop this stanza sequence about the self-cope of fake levitators, how we learn to die well, parents hoping the worst for a payday, catcallers, out-of-body experiences, Montgomery tubercles
catcalls to a life of extension-cord beatings infants drawn, like honey bees, to vibrant areolae eddies warping current lines along the stream; knots in wood grain “It proves nothing: only fakes levitate pens as debunkers do” peace of mind, at the price of underdevelopment why when animals strike a pose of authority, be it a moose on a cliff or a general in a portrait, is there an air of brazen stupidity in their faces? head-down hunters return in snow empty-handed, but go unnoticed by the children torching fuel in play but the importance of having connections in your life lies also in the education they offer on what dying looks like, which is one of the only chances to cultivate elegance in your own undoing that wisp of condensed vapor hovering the parted mouth of uncorked champagne what grips everyone’s attention is worth keeping an eye on even— especially—if it is worthless poison that out-of-body experiences are only internal states— no dier ever able to see the face-up pictures staged high up on so many hospital shelves—is the magic men who now, in their dying age, rage over politics with fiery eyes that steer away even old friends think of letters penned from a summer loss— mankind resists erasure to get lost in a love crime is to lay oneself on a road open to lean rain deemed too gross to use store restrooms, and attacked or arrested for an alley piss, he sank even grosser with urine trousers in our beyond-decadent age of watered-down mass art, one of the best indications of the probable crappiness of an artist’s work is if it enjoys commercial recognition whitenotized as needing whites to unruin them, blacks are lured into a ruining game where blacks locate their core power in guilt-tripping whites (as a son might a mother for past abuse) and where whites get their guilt lashed away (in the safe way of BDSM) rancid cream from Montgomery tubercles and dormant ear-piercing holes people operate as if the addition of “want" to “is" magically yields "ought" seeking employer permission to form a labor union having to say goodbye to a loved one mid-quarrel the solution prior to surgery—or, more like, prior to giving in to sweet (and salty and buttery and savory and umami) death— is, in her mind, to save up enough to do her binge eating in VR instead of going about his day, as certain ignoramuses put it, unable to help assuming he has the very free will he denies, the hard determinist goes about assuming he is simply a causal agent—a causal agent determined by the past druggie friends, excited to shoot your share with you blacked out, place a mirror shard under your nose as if actually disciplined enough to monitor for mist the mugger’s considerateness in not striking the woman even as she clings to the purse to keep on, we whitewash the most stressful chapter— even missing then expression has long been a salvation for holding at bay despairing thoughts as to the pointlessness of expression social media took the place of mass-mailing holiday cards to rub our “flourishing” in faces the sense that something is absent from our lives is absent, we notice, after a day of toil—and yet we do not question if toil itself is that something fiercely sensitive to the call beamed by things to be placed in art, day duties provide the artist a caesura welcomed from leisure, where the call is unbearable from the beginning we were slated to aim at things beyond, our hunter foundation beneath so many layers that to sin for us literally means to miss the mark the whore’s lance-worthy neck boil beauty and love amidst the destruction allowed it to grow the tenderness of fish speared without struggle flathead screwdrivers with topographic butts—surrogate chisels daydreams of rescuing a child from fire, and raising it on the streets with him, had the dope-sick hitcher—dizzy from the fender-bender—flee the car with their infant families gathering before the glowing screens that authenticate reality naked ladies no longer scream the sky: proposals for nose art on military jets are vetted to ensure none take offense knowing that what is being said is nothing new, but still compelled to say it anyway—for connection? villagers looting the luggage strewn across the dirt road after the truck crash how boring (but safe) it would be if your sole story was the one you invented for yourself—who you are, who you could be, limited by your stunted horizon parental concern has them query, “You sure there were no bad touches?”—but so does hope to join in on that lawsuit against the church
This is a portion of an ongoing mosaic poem called Made for You and Me. This portion is from the first installment: hive Being (Stanzas 2016-2020). More specifically, it is from the 2016 portion of that five-part work.
Photo: arthistoryproject.com/artists/jacques-louis-david/general-etienne-maurice-gerard/