The Symptom of This Age

“What’s the point?” say the blank eyes in a dull monotone.

—Run away!

What? This old thing is still here?

Sometimes I feel like I dreamed it. Just invented it, out of nothing. Yet, it is strangely comforting that is is here… a monument to—a sculpture of—my thoughts.

And what makes it most charming: I forgot all about it. It got up, quietly, and left the room. No one noticed. The conversation continued. After an eon, I got up and I found him in the kitchen, slicing fruit.

goodbye

Poem

God! love! sun! all dear and singular things!
I am not bad although I am wicked
perhaps, and not too rare. Beat, yes, liquored
to exhaustion, dead tired in sheets, still sings

to me the thunderous redwood’s laughings
at my ears, a lover patient and picked,
and the crooning violet’s not panicked
by my bloodshot foreskin, swollen lips, wings,

her tongue stays in my ear and sings. Purple
clouds, doubting, say hello across the lawn
and linen, wondering if I’m too gay

with exits, too abrupt with doors. Away
far! the scratchy tune “L’amant du peuple”:
I see a girl tap-dancing ont he dawn.

Frank O’Hara

Toast

Raise your glass and cheers
For knowing that you don’t pick your happy place,
It picks you.
So here’s to making do.

The Manoeuvre

I saw the two starlings
coming in toward the wires.
But at last,
just before alighting, they

turned in the air together
and landed backwards!
that’s what got me—to
face into the wind’s teeth.

William Carlos Williams

File Under:

Good Ideas For Restless People

Keep a tennis ball and a hacky sack handy for healthy entertainment in dull times and to relieve agression. Especially useful in small spaces. Surrounding flat surfaces and various objects are fair game. If you annoy the neighbors, count it as a bonus.