517 Social commentaries poems

Tossing off expletives into the sea of cab lights, I lounge ever more than I work. I wear my silk pants to the middle-of-America themed bar as if white-collar were this Halloween's hottest new costume. It sinks like a stone, this attention to the lives of others. I think I have evolved to respect my social obligations, only complaining to the cell phone's warm illicit glow. I feel drunk on the whole leafy season when you hear me, working ever to avoid work. Sentiment forbidden by custom, industrialization forbidden by nothing. Down the block they have begun restoring the mid-century antique dresser, men shuffling back and forth with gold polish and sand. It's insane that I care to ask towards its progress. We repeat a process of hoping our bodies to the future though for now mine eats cucumbers in bed. I had a dream about a crystal blue pool. I felt stupid when I saw the ocean.

Eating food from McDonald's is mathematically impossible. Because before you can eat it, you have to order it. And before you can order it, you have to decide what you want. And before you can decide what you want, you have to read the menu. And before you can read the menu, you have to be in front of the menu. And before you can be in front of the menu, you have to wait in line. And before you can wait in line, you have to drive to the restaurant. And before you can drive to the restaurant, you have to get in your car. And before you can get in your car, you have to put clothes on. And before you can put clothes on, you have to get out of bed. And before you can get out of bed, you have to stop being so depressed. And before you can stop being so depressed, you have to understand what depression is. And before you can understand what depression is, you have to think clearly. And before you can think clearly, you have to turn off the TV. And before you can turn off the TV, you have to free your hands. And before you can free your hands, you have to stop masturbating. And before you can stop masturbating, you have to get off. And before you can get off, you have to imagine someone you really like with his pants off, encouraging you to explore his enlarged genitalia. And before you can imagine someone you really like with his pants off encouraging you to explore his enlarged genitalia, you have to imagine that person stroking your neck. And before you can imagine that person stroking your neck, you have to imagine that person walking up to you looking determined. And before you can imagine that person walking up to you looking determined, you have to choose who that person is. And before you can choose who that person is, you have to like someone. And before you can like someone, you have to interact with someone. And before you can interact with someone, you have to introduce yourself. And before you can introduce yourself, you have to be in a social situation. And before you can be in a social situation, you have to be invited to something somehow. And before you can be invited to something somehow, you have to receive a telephone call from a friend. And before you can receive a telephone call from a friend, you have to make a reputation for yourself as being sort of fun. And before you can make a reputation for yourself as being sort of fun, you have to be noticeably fun on several different occasions. And before you can be noticeably fun on several different occasions, you have to be fun once in the presence of two or more people. And before you can be fun once in the presence of two or more people, you have to be drunk. And before you can be drunk, you have to buy alcohol. And before you can buy alcohol, you have to want your psychological state to be altered. And before you can want your psychological state to be altered, you have to recognize that your current psychological state is unsatisfactory. And before you can recognize that your current psychological state is unsatisfactory, you have to grow tired of your lifestyle. And before you can grow tired of your lifestyle, you have to repeat the same patterns over and over endlessly. And before you can repeat the same patterns over and over endlessly, you have to lose a lot of your creativity. And before you can lose a lot of your creativity, you have to stop reading books. And before you can stop reading books, you have to think that you would benefit from reading less frequently. And before you can think that you would benefit from reading less frequently, you have to be discouraged by the written word. And before you can be discouraged by the written word, you have to read something that reinforces your insecurities. And before you can read something that reinforces your insecurities, you have to have insecurities. And before you can have insecurities, you have to be awake for part of the day. And before you can be awake for part of the day, you have to feel motivation to wake up. And before you can feel motivation to wake up, you have to dream of perfectly synchronized conversations with people you desire to talk to. And before you can dream of perfectly synchronized conversations with people you desire to talk to, you have to have a general idea of what a perfectly synchronized conversation is. And before you can have a general idea of what a perfectly synchronized conversation is, you have to watch a lot of movies in which people successfully talk to each other. And before you can watch a lot of movies in which people successfully talk to each other, you have to have an interest in other people. And before you can have an interest in other people, you have to have some way of benefiting from other people. And before you can have some way of benefiting from other people, you have to have goals. And before you can have goals, you have to want power. And before you can want power, you have to feel greed. And before you can feel greed, you have to feel more deserving than others. And before you can feel more deserving than others, you have to feel a general disgust with the human population. And before you can feel a general disgust with the human population, you have to be emotionally wounded. And before you can be emotionally wounded, you have to be treated badly by someone you think you care about while in a naive, vulnerable state. And before you can be treated badly by someone you think you care about while in a naive, vulnerable state, you have to feel inferior to that person. And before you can feel inferior to that person, you have to watch him laughing and walking towards his drum kit with his shirt off and the sun all over him. And before you can watch him laughing and walking towards his drum kit with his shirt off and the sun all over him, you have to go to one of his outdoor shows. And before you can go to one of his outdoor shows, you have to pretend to know something about music. And before you can pretend to know something about music, you have to feel embarrassed about your real interests. And before you can feel embarrassed about your real interests, you have to realize that your interests are different from other people's interests. And before you can realize that your interests are different from other people’s interests, you have to be regularly misunderstood. And before you can be regularly misunderstood, you have to be almost completely socially debilitated. And before you can be almost completely socially debilitated, you have to be an outcast. And before you can be an outcast, you have to be rejected by your entire group of friends. And before you can be rejected by your entire group of friends, you have to be suffocatingly loyal to your friends. And before you can be suffocatingly loyal to your friends, you have to be afraid of loss. And before you can be afraid of loss, you have to lose something of value. And before you can lose something of value, you have to realize that that thing will never change. And before you can realize that that thing will never change, you have to have the same conversation with your grandmother forty or fifty times. And before you can have the same conversation with your grandmother forty or fifty times, you have to have a desire to talk to her and form a meaningful relationship. And before you can have a desire to talk to her and form a meaningful relationship, you have to love her. And before you can love her, you have to notice the great tolerance she has for you. And before you can notice the great tolerance she has for you, you have to break one of her favorite china teacups that her mother gave her and forget to apologize. And before you can break one of her favorite china teacups that her mother gave her and forget to apologize, you have to insist on using the teacups for your imaginary tea party. And before you can insist on using the teacups for your imaginary tea party, you have to cultivate your imagination. And before you can cultivate your imagination, you have to spend a lot of time alone. And before you can spend a lot of time alone, you have to find ways to sneak away from your siblings. And before you can find ways to sneak away from your siblings, you have to have siblings. And before you can have siblings, you have to underwhelm your parents. And before you can underwhelm your parents, you have to be quiet, polite and unnoticeable. And before you can be quiet, polite and unnoticeable, you have to understand that it is possible to disappoint your parents. And before you can understand that it is possible to disappoint your parents, you have to be harshly reprimanded. And before you can be harshly reprimanded, you have to sing loudly at an inappropriate moment. And before you can sing loudly at an inappropriate moment, you have to be happy. And before you can be happy, you have to be able to recognize happiness. And before you can be able to recognize happiness, you have to know distress. And before you can know distress, you have to be watched by an insufficient babysitter for one week. And before you can be watched by an insufficient babysitter for one week, you have to vomit on the other, more pleasant babysitter. And before you can vomit on the other, more pleasant babysitter, you have to be sick. And before you can be sick, you have to eat something you’re allergic to. And before you can eat something you’re allergic to, you have to have allergies. And before you can have allergies, you have to be born. And before you can be born, you have to be conceived. And before you can be conceived, your parents have to copulate. And before your parents can copulate, they have to be attracted to one another. And before they can be attracted to one another, they have to have common interests. And before they can have common interests, they have to talk to each other. And before they can talk to each other, they have to meet. And before they can meet, they have to have in-school suspension on the same day. And before they can have in-school suspension on the same day, they have to get caught sneaking off campus separately. And before they can get caught sneaking off campus separately, they have to think of somewhere to go. And before they can think of somewhere to go, they have to be familiar with McDonald's. And before they can be familiar with McDonald's, they have to eat food from McDonald's. And eating food from McDonald's is mathematically impossible.

an introductory lecture This morning we shall spend a few minutes Upon the study of symbolism, which is basic To the nature of money. I show you this nickel. Icons and cryptograms are written all over The nickel: one side shows a hunchbacked bison Bending his head and curling his tail to accommodate The circular nature of money. Over him arches UNITED STATES OF AMERICA , and, squinched in Between that and his rump, E PLURIBUS UNUM , A Roman reminiscence that appears to mean An indeterminately large number of things All of which are the same. Under the bison A straight line giving him a ground to stand on Reads FIVE CENTS . And on the other side of our nickel There is the profile of a man with long hair And a couple of feathers in the hair; we know Somehow that he is an American Indian, and He wears the number nineteen-thirty-six. Right in front of his eyes the word LIBERTY , bent To conform with the curve of the rim, appears To be falling out of the sky Y first; the Indian Keeps his eyes downcast and does not notice this; To notice it, indeed, would be shortsighted of him. So much for the iconography of one of our nickels, Which is now becoming a rarity and something of A collectors’ item: for as a matter of fact There is almost nothing you can buy with a nickel, The representative American Indian was destroyed A hundred years or so ago, and his descendants’ Relations with liberty are maintained with reservations, Or primitive concentration camps; while the bison, Except for a few examples kept in cages, Is now extinct. Something like that, I think, Is what Keats must have meant in his celebrated Ode on a Grecian Urn. Notice, in conclusion, A number of circumstances sometimes overlooked Even by experts: (a) Indian and bison, Confined to obverse and reverse of the coin, Can never see each other; (b) they are looking In opposite directions, the bison past The Indian’s feathers, the Indian past The bison’s tail; (c) they are upside down To one another; (d) the bison has a human face Somewhat resembling that of Jupiter Ammon. I hope that our studies today will have shown you Something of the import of symbolism With respect to the understanding of what is symbolized.

We used to play, long before we bought real houses. A roll of the dice could send a girl to jail. The money was pink, blue, gold, as well as green, and we could own a whole railroad or speculate in hotels where others dreaded staying: the cost was extortionary. At last one person would own everything, every teaspoon in the dining car, every spike driven into the planks by immigrants, every crooked mayor. But then, with only the clothes on our backs, we ran outside, laughing.

Haze. Three student violists boarding a bus. A clatter of jackhammers. Granular light. A film of sweat for primer and the heat for a coat of paint. A man and a woman on a bench: she tells him he must be psychic, for how else could he sense, even before she knew, that she’d need to call it off? A bicyclist fumes by with a coach’s whistle clamped hard between his teeth, shrilling like a teakettle on the boil. I never meant, she says. But I thought, he replies. Two cabs almost collide; someone yells fuck in Farsi. I’m sorry, she says. The comforts of loneliness fall in like a bad platoon. The sky blurs—there’s a storm coming up or down. A lank cat slinks liquidly around a corner. How familiar it feels to feel strange, hollower than a bassoon. A rill of chill air in the leaves. A car alarm. Hail.

He claps a hand Across the gaping hole— Or else the sight might Well inside to Melt the mind—if any Thinking spoke Were in the wheel, Or any real Fright-fragments broke Out of the gorge to Soak the breast, the meaning Might incite a stroke—best Press against it, close The clawhole, stand In stupor, petrified. The dream Be damned, the deeps defied. The hand’s to keep The scream inside.

Another dead mare waits in the shoals of some body of water, waits to be burden, borne into a foaming ocean, where it might become food for whales, or, simply empty signifier—hair latched to the sea’s undulation like Absalom’s beauty caught in the playful branches of a tree desiring union, entanglement, thick confusion— but not this mare; she does not get the luxury of a lyric—a song that makes our own undoing or killing sweet even as we go down into the fire to rise as smoke. This horse must lie, eyes open, amongst the stones and fresh water crawfish in Money, Mississippi, listen to the men’s boots break the water as they drop a black boy’s body near her head, pick him up, only to let him fall again there: bent and eye-to-eye with her as though decaying is something that requires a witness —as though the mare might say: on Tuesday after the rain fell, the boy’s neck finally snapped from the weight of the mill fan; he never looked at me again.

None of it’s there that you cared for, so familiar furniture and paintings. The medals aren’t there either I’m still there but it isn’t; I’m here; sword, I have sword — imagine — and disguising protect- ive the ancient helmet. Her head was cut off nonetheless. The man brought the head along to the doctor: the head said to. Shouldn’t we bring the body I asked in case he wants to re- attach them Oh, the head hadn’t thought of that. What do you have instead of a body, there? We have a wholeness of perception what we are asking you to do for us, write down our poems creates a body. Otherwise our body ... isn’t that we aren’t sensuous ... but we decohere, you must understand that the universe is always developing or changing its face — body — whatever; we have always been it but it’s never quite right ... pilot’s license; my pilot’s license is a fossil, you said. We need yours. We need your license. When Momma first, the very first hallucination that the decompression tube in her stomach was black ... It isn’t black I said over the phone well I thought it was she said, not being fanciful, and I was in a motel in Colorado at the time. Whose head was it really I repeat. For we never leave here and nothing fossilizes but stonelike mossy patterns might be made, colors transformed walk to the hospital, everyone’s mad at me, who cares? It was my whole soul transported and all its certainties that I existed, beneath all the legends, otherwise as joy.

The Department of the Interior and Department of Homeland Security announced a joint enquiry into the explosion and sinking of the Transocean Deepwater Horizon on April 22. The us House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources have also announced investigations. Last week bp launched its own investigation into the incident and has an investigation team at work in Houston, Texas. —bp.com, April 28, 2010 Beneath three thousand feet, the sea is wholly dark. The shuttle feeds hydraulics to the blind shear ram and represents a single failure point for disconnect. Recommendation: Declare selected points on earth invisible. Affected communities have been provided with limited quantities of powdered milk and other staples. Many questions remain. Some close their eyes under water instinctively. Imagination can create a sense of peril where no real peril exists. Safety equipment tests were necessarily imaginary; mechanisms in question were wholly inaccessible. A journalist sinking into the mud was told to toss his camera to a colleague and hold extremely still. In this sense, we are our own prisoners. Investigators have salt in their hair and sand in their teeth. The hotel pool is empty. Yet questions remain. Barbeque billboards depict grinning pigs in aprons and toques. Cleanup crews recover thousands of plastic milk jugs from the shallows. Do these images appeal to the death drive? Care should be taken to ensure the highest possible reliability from that valve. Thousands in affected communities have been evicted and live in tents. Demonstrators have prevented investigators from accessing hotel stairwells. 1900: Rudolf Diesel demonstrates an engine fueled by peanut oil at the Paris World’s Fair. The Vietnamese owner of Bad Bob’s bbq Buffet tells a journalist she last drank powdered milk in a refugee camp “a thousand years ago.” Items available only in limited quantities are found in Appendix C. Cleanup crews have stacked thousands of drums of dispersant in hotel parking lots. Dominant failure combinations for well control suggest additional safety mechanism diversity and redundancy provide additional reliability. Bank of America will offer limited foreclosure deferments in affected communities. Thousands of years ago, a pronghorn ram slipped beneath the surface of a tar pit, jerking its snout for air. Recommendation: Live at inaccessible elevations. Recommendation: Close your eyes. Recommendation: Prevent access to the invisible. Engineering reports noted required safety mechanisms were unlikely to function yet were required for safety’s sake. If the committee may offer an analogy, a blind surgeon is dangerous, an imaginary surgeon harmless. Still, questions remain. BP’s 2010 Q1 replacement cost profit was $5,598 million, compared with $2,387 million a year ago, an increase of 135%. Unlimited quantities of peanuts are available. However, care must be taken to ensure continued high reliability of the shuttle valve, since it is extremely critical to the overall disconnect operation. Phenomena not meant to be accessed or imagined are found in Appendix E. Cleanup crews are sometimes idled for lack of fuel. 1913: Diesel found dead, drowned under suspicious circumstances. The investigators’ hotel toilets won’t flush. Midas turned everything he touched to gold. In this sense, seabirds cloaked in oil are rich. Cleanup crews live in tents and are provided with limited quantities of barbeque and wear white canvas jumpsuits like prisoners on furlough. If the committee may offer an analogy, the death drive resides at wholly dark depths of imagination and fuel issues from a wound we’ve opened there.

What you cannot see through those windows beyond the bare hill is the hand resting on the table, is the man lying still on the bed, is the vague gesture of  the young woman in the hallway as she remembers something that happened yesterday, is the mouse hesitating under the draining board, is the twelve year old boy putting on a record of Wiener Blut that he once saw his parents waltzing to. All that you see is the all-but-naked child on the all-but-naked hill against a naked sky, as if  what you could not see were the question and she the reply.