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Self-awareness is a pain in the ass.
Why not just be self-conscious
and sniff our crotches and armpits,
fearing odors,
incessantly checking flies for closure?
Or still better,
be unconscious--
going about our daily lives like zombies
who know no art, no love, no beauty,
for whom nothing is "sublime,"
only "pretty" and "nice."
With self-awareness
we know our abilities,
but we are also cursed to know our faults.
Dream merges with reality for one brief moment
The ground shakes in my dream
and I wake in the process of sitting up
Erect...and it’s over.
4.0 on the Richter scale
I call out to the people in my dreams
Can they still hear me?
Shaking off surprise at the brief earthquake
I rise automatically to repeat my every morning routine
a devalued ritual devoid of power
containing only habit--like praying a novena while smoking a cigarette,
mind on neither
I gather my energy
and pace toward the bathroom where I perform the
necessary ablutions
first shaving, then finding my way into the shower
In this half-wakened state, thoughts explode in my head with each axon-dendrite
neuron firing, each idea a brilliant nova lighting up the universe in
my mind, each constantly replacing the last, as the previous winks into
oblivion.
But one finally stays--an idea to write a long poetic work that is the
essence of all my experiences and of life itself.
But why write? In the past millennia words have been ordered by many--can
I order them in an entirely new way not yet seen? How can this be done?
Can I say something new in an new way? There is no originality--but I'm
not the first person to say that.
Still, I feel the need to write, to put my thoughts on paper, to others
of my thoughts.
Stepping forth from my amniotic shower, leaving discarded hair and epithelial
cells behind, my mind wanders momentarily.
I recall genetic engineers suggesting that they invent a hair-eating microbe
to eat drain-clogging hair. Great idea, but what if these microbes get
out of hand? They might eat all hair, everywhere.
Imagine: a bald earth.
Depressing. It was bad enough my hair began to recede at the age of 19.
(But I still have a full head of hair in my mind.)
Forgetting the microbes, I cross to my desk and, still not fully dry,
I jot a few phrases before I lose them forever. As I do, more come to
me, and I make them permanent.
I read the words and more come quickly
I have to marvel in amusement
at these squiggles
"writing"
emerging from my pen
They look quite different from the old days
when I won penmanship awards from the nuns
Who could forget Palmer Penmanship,
Why did we do that scribbling?
What did it mean?
What was it supposed to do?
Apparently it hasn't helped my handwriting
Pausing, I look at what there is so far
wondering what it will lead to:
anything at all?
or nothing at all?
perhaps a manifesto of some kind?
maybe a poem?
an avant-garde/next wave narrative?
a piece for video?
a performance art piece?
a...play?
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