Selective Ramblings of an Eccentric

My head? Your head?

Groggily, I rise from the table

and stagger into a kitchen lit by the green digits

on our microwave; switch it off. Now it is dark but

at least I’m saving the world and I return

to the table because I forgot

what I wanted from the kitchen - maybe

a sandwich so yummy it would make me skinny

like shampoo advertisement recruits

shining out from in-between bus stop graffiti.

I’m obsessed with graffiti ; maybe because it’s everywhere

or maybe I see it everywhere because I’m obsessed.

It makes me reflect on mortality

due to the marked desperation that screams

from the scratchings and scrawlings

of dirty plastic propaganda. I wander

back to the table and bark at the saliva

that crept from my groggy mouth

while embossed coasters and f*g ash pressed themselves

against my cheek, determined not to be wiped clean,

which brings me back to graffiti. Of course.

Angry young men are ten

a penny if you believe all that you see on TV. You’re surprised, I suppose,

that I have a TV, after all I’m supposed to be saving the world

and that monstrosity should be the first thing to go,

yet amending each vice requires immense sacrifice,

 which is why there’s f*g ash on the table, sandwich ingredients in my fridge and angry young men on a moronic device representing a revised portrait of reality,

consisting of rage and celebrity,

in an age of anti-intellectual comedy that I once found funny

but now realise is killing me. Where were we? Ah, graffiti,

for I have not explained properly

the nature of the beast called conformity, disguised as rebellion.  

Everything can be condensed down

to the time – yes, Time is condensation;

little droplets race

down window panes

and if you count them, you are taking Time – when even loin cloths

were considered prudish, except that our capacity for consideration

was constrained by the limits on language and of our brains,

and because of this we were savages praying to the sky

instead of to a giant man who up there resides.

How silly. Where were we? Ah yes, graffiti, and surrendering to the boundaries

of poverty, which translates as conformity. Ignorance is bliss

[what we don’t know can’t hurt us]

so all little children know that if your friend jumps off a cliff

you should follow him

otherwise you’ll be left alone peering into an abyss of fractured bones.

This is called survival instinct; we’ve all seen what happens to antelopes

or wildebeest who stand out from the crowd: they’re knocked to the ground

or drowned by crocodiles and other creeps

who go around seeking weaknesses, which is also linked to the survival instinct, since

hungry young men can become angry young men,

and angry young men can become graffiti artists

working shifts in supermarkets...

terrorists...statistics.

Trust me, I’ve seen it on my TV.

 

Author's Note

Suggestions for a better layout would be appreciated (points-a-go-go lol). Thanks.
Also, let me know what you think of it.
Oh, and yeah, Amber - Ginsberg hooked me first read.

Reviews

[MrJodie]

It's like Ginsberg only with modern appliances, YouTube and that magic glowing box that sucks and sucks until every last drop of independent thought is drained dry as the Las Vegas desert. Good luck getting the f*g ash out of the table.

This rocks. This piece deserves publication in Tangent... and, oh, so much more. Congratulations and well deserved.

[zig]

"yes, Time is condensation;

little droplets race"

i like that phrase, very observant. i like the way you wrap it all up, all related. as far as layout, ive never been fond of centering, but thats just me. perhaps you should try breaking completely loose of form, just start moving lines around the page at ramdom, see what "feels" right. zig

[Solst Rapture]

Remarkable. So I guess I should try and say something- make a remark- I should say something.


That should do it.

[Rain]

So, that's what the hell bounces around in your mind in the early morning. We don't have much graffiti around here , we kill them. This had such a scattered process, that I actually enjoyed it, because that's how I often think. It didn't have a smooth flow , but how can you make it smooth ? Why would you want too ? I liked it, a lot , because it jerked me back and forth.
It flowed well enough to follow. I actually liked the style it came in. Rain..

[Pema Dorje]

... a cyclic spiralling of whimsy and wisdom and insight into the meaninglessness of our social miasma of differentiation and disrespect ... you've captured a social ill with clarity and brilliance and the flow is like a torrent, a waterfall, plunging the reader into the abyss; bones and all! a writeous write ...

[Lesley Wood]

This is awesome. I laughed and pondered. i have gone into rooms so many forgetting what I needed then remembered then forgot again. I obsess over graffiti and wonder at the lives who left the marks. I really enjoyed this.

[dead]

"in an age of anti-intellectual comedy"
So true �a month or two ago I got "Talladega Nights" from the library but never watched it because I was afraid of disappointment. Woody Allen! That is comedy for me! (How do you know the ashes are Mrs. House? Did they resemble her?) Unfortunately most comedy seems to be designed to just let people laugh � a brainwashing device!

Anyhow is your text self-indulgent? I have no idea really, but I would say why care? Art is about giving honest expression; it is the mistaken view of cultural decay that the artist should cater to the audience, I think the audience, the spectator must go to the work of art, must make the conscious effort to understand, to identify with, to live through.
Rebellious conformity � I have similar ideas on this point, rebellion often leads to reinforcement, you find it in fringe art and such aswell, people who choose to become an artist, who are contrary just to be contrary � but art is not about that, art is about expression and aesthetics.
Angry young men � and so much anger there is indeed; how far removed we are from that Stoic ideal of self-mastery � and of course is there a self if it is not mastered? Man has lost himself in his freedom, a theme which Lars von Trier worked out in his movie Manderlay (now that is true cinema) � all this freedom how does one handle it? And man becomes spoiled ("hungry young men become angry young men") thinks that everything should go his way since afterall he is free; his selfless-self clashes with reality time after time � and at the end what is this man? What is his life? The constant scratching of scratched tissues, new blood and new wounds!
Anyway, I enjoyed this read, thanks!

[Chantal-lise Mirman]

I love this rambling circling of the wagons, surveying the panorama and sending mental scouts to glean information, all the while protecting your set of truths. It's true that everything needs to be taken into account, but too myopic a view of things distorts the truth, as you cleverly point out. One time, I looked at the word, "p r e t t y," for so long that it lost all meaning to me - I had sucked the very soul of the word out of existence by removing it from its context and the letters, although still physically adjacent to each other, were no longer bound by any other relationship.

I love this kind of existential questioning that does not presume to offer answers other than to promote further investigation. Things, events, people, circumstances need to be recognized for what they are without the presumption of context. They have a whole other existence in context which may or may not intersect in moments of time with their alter identity.

We are of course filters, as are T.V. and graffiti. Nonetheless, there is no other way to acquire information. I get the sense, in your poem, of someone whose boundaries are down, temporarily disoriented due to sleep, and being caught in a maelstrom of raw data and having to reconstruct the reality of our world.

I find this to be very creative and thought-provoking. The form reminds me of a cyclone, and I would not be surprised to find Dorothy's house land on me at the end! The language draws the reader in with its somewhat circular reasoning and repetition and does not allow the reader to disengage. You manage, through alliteration, cadence and repeated themes to thoroughly hypnotize us, and it is only your final line, "Trust me, I've seen it on my TV." that snaps us out of it!

Going into my favorites, and I am recommending it to friends!

[[untitled]]

I love the word yummy.
And yes, what is the start of obsession.
Internal or external.
Did the internet create this new society
or did we create it needing more alienation
while feeling a sense of community.
My last GF was surely obsessed with it.
The sandwich...mostly moron cuisine,
slather slap and inhale it just to "Feed me!"
Like the pop pap on the TV.
Here in NYC graffiti is both wonderful
and conformist trash in their own way.
I'd rather see it than not though.
Let's raise a pint to us angry men!
We revel in disgust and sorry situations
with Utopia in the back of our minds.
You voiced my own thoughts and helped
to coalesce them in a fine fashion.
Very fine work and I will return for more.

Thank you for your reviews and astute
comments/advice. I welcome them.
Jack

[Angelheaded Hipster]

This rocks my socks clean off...I get it, completely....ADHD thrown in with some OCD, and well hell....Bi Polar seems to be pretty damn good too. *total tongue in cheek*

I love the rhythm, the words were wonderful, and with it bunched in the middle like that..made it for me, at least, even better.
Not only do you give the most amazing reviews, you write the most craziest shiznit Ive read in awhile.