Text and Hubris

Note: This shouldn’t have been posted. Since it was. I will leave it. It needs a serious rework, though.

I wake up and go to work
just like I did yesterday,
just like I will tomorrow.

It’s another in a long line of learned behaviors, programmed rotes, and religious rites designed for my edification, demanding obedience.

And do I obey.

After all, what am I? Another automaton: low on power and slowing as the lights dim.

I sold out. I traded up. I got ground down. And I caved in.

I broke.

So I spend another 12 hour day staring into a screen, talking into microphone, and pressing the same buttons over and over again.

I think, “Holy shit, I’m George Jetson. So where’s my jet car briefcase? “

And I’m not a cog. Cogs are losers.

I’m a sprocket, bought and paid for.

And while I bitch and press my buttons, somewhere across the pond a six year-old plugs poisoned plastiforms into metal and prays it’s only his baby teeth that keep falling out.

In the Jetsons, everyone was the same color and spoke the same language. No one was poor. No one was sick. No one was suffering.

It’s hard to see people suffer and crawl when you’re flying so high.

If only I had my briefcase.

Heat

We spoke of id and ego while the world burned.
I woke to the heat. I felt it in me.
It was trapped between my skin and bones.
I was solid and melting. My body wept sweat.
And you mentioned Freud as you watched me
bury my head in a pillow, seeking to dry my skin
on the yellowed pillowcase and then defend my actions,
an innocent accused of innuendo.
Outside the silence sat and waited.
The sounds of the day, still muted in the heat,
escaped our attention. I lay back and let my skin
dissolve into the salty liquid that lay beneath.
I heard you laugh, then grow still
until only the silence remained.

Notes:
This is a short, rough, piece that was inspired by our weather today. It needs a lot of polishing but I promised to post more work or works in progress. Keep in mind that anything I post here is probably off-the-cuff and not something I would consider submitting. This is my scratch pad, of sorts, but it does give and idea of my work and my thoughts. Plus, we need more poetry and fiction out there. Preferably, off the web.

But that is my next project!

So what now? There’s a light out above the
bathroom sink and the pale face that stares
back at me from between flecks of water
smiles a grim little smile. I wonder
what answer to give. What make sense?
This morning I had an two eggs wrapped in
the doughy confines of an English muffin
with watermelon on the side.
The smiling chef, a man whose face I know
who has been there every morning for years
didn’t even bother to ask what I wanted.
He knew my breakfast by heart
as I am creature of habit, but neither he
nor I knew that tomorrow wouldn’t come.
Neither he nor I knew that time
was so desperately short and that
in the space of an hour – I would be gone.

So what now? The handle is cold and damp
and the water runs a little too fast for the drain.
A puddle begins to gather in the sink basin
and I look away from the face,
from the eyes looking for an answer.
I can tell you the meaning of a text and
I can sometimes bend words
in just the right way to say something real
but I have nothing. No answer.
I should be afraid or angry.
I should yell, scream, cry, or shout.
I should do something.
So I cup my hands, reach down, and
catch the cold water as it pours out.
In a moment the captured water fills
my hands and overflows into the basin
below. I have changed almost nothing.
The water still flows as it has before
but I am a part of it now.
Maybe, just maybe, that can be enough.