I am the Boogie Man,
But only for a day,
I will hide in your closet,
And wait for you to sleep.
But since you sleep
At such a late hour
I will be me
And sneak away
Cause I
Not boogie
Am not
Scary.
July: Beg for forgiveness.
Heart: Ok. What do you want me to say?
July: Just beg; you’ll know if it is right or not.
Heart: My mother told me not to beg to strangers.
July: Your mother was always wrong.
Heart: In the justifiable sense?
July: I have so much on my mind.
Heart: Your habit, not mine.
July: Give me silence, please, I beg you.
Heart: You said beg for forgiveness.
July: What do I need with that?
Heart: For the quiet.
July: Just, you beg, bug.
Yes, there, the green hat
Opening itself to thought
Yes, I, standing below
Mark it as something new
Yet, nowhere do you
Yes, you, declare it
Something we can share
We belong
At this distance
Forever
Bang!
THE KILLER EMOTION!
I need to
SHOUT
CRY
RUN
The house fell
And I said, that is that
Then breathed and breathed and breathed
Spoke softly
Neatly
Gracefully landed
And the next day
Everything settled
The house may fall
But stay calm
The next day
You have to rebuild
All this being
I’m very tired
Something waiting
Waiting
Waiting for night
To come out
And keep me awake
When fatigue
Slams the door
SMACK!
What remains
Does not think
About what
It does.
“I don’t think I can get married.”
Years of, “I don’t like to talk about that.”
Translates as, “You are a temporary loser
In my life
As soon as I can dump you
I’ll change my mind.”
I had a lot of growing to do
Anyway
Still, thoughts gather
Catch
And twist…
But these days
Softly settle
May we yet be friends
I heard these words…
Where was it?
Some story…
That perhaps.
The Cult of
True Womanhood.
Screaming
Laughing
And tearing
Was the
“They are all
They are all
We are all
We are becoming
We are then
They are
I am
No way
We are going
To
Gender
Essentialism.”
Not me though.
Not I that is.
But
Holy Cow
how perfect:
Here it is:
Here here here:
Cultural 2010 Feminism is:
The Cult of True Womanhood
Only the
rules are
different.
Stop it.
We are
Our choices.
Not our
Essence.
That little “not now”
Is you
Running
As fast as you can
From
Something
You
Fear
Quiet nothing
You are screaming
Hobart was sitting in a chair at the front of his house when the flier arrived. A young man in a green cap skipped up to him, threw the flier in his lap, and ran away screaming about a new phone coming out. Though the flier was in his lap, Hobart did not pick it up. He let it sit. The wind was calm. He was calm. There was no need. No need to read. Read it. Read that flier. No need really to do much. Perhaps that new phone. Well, perhaps. Maybe later. All this thinking was kind of disquieting. Or uncalming. Or fear relaxing. Or distant wandering creativity. What amazing sensitive thoughts were coming to Hobart. It was time for a nap.
Two hours later, Hobart woke up. As he stood up, the flier fell from his lap. As he turned to walk inside his modest home, he heard the flier hit a rock. He remembered the flier, but did not want to turn all the way around to pick it up. He stopped though. He was at the doorway. Get the flyer or go inside? If getting the flier was going to keep him from going inside, and going inside was going to keep him from getting the flier, then he wanted nothing to do with either of them. He sat where he was. While facing his doorway, he did not have much to look at, so he turned around–barely. Just enough to lean on his side and crane his head. He was not looking out exactly, more just using his peripheral vision to eye the street. Hobart never realized how tiring peripheral vision was. Damn, that’s deep, he thought.
A modest wind drew Hobart’s attention to the flier which now leapt from the rock and onto Hobart’s lap—again. He stared at it. It was yellow. Deep yellow. He did not blink because the deeper he stared at it, the deeper his vision became, the deeper the mind made known, the deeper said access was granting him to the eternal yellowness sanctioned by the GOVERNMENT! IT WAS A GOVERNMENT FLIER! A CONSPIRACY!
Hobart did not know if he should throw the flier away or tear it or read it or what. He sat there for a while, still not blinking. Sometimes the haze that came from staring was too cool to pass up. Government conspiracy or no, yellow pulsed and yellow breathed and yellow hurt his eyes after a while so he started blinking again and then wondered what he was doing.
“Oh yeah!” he exclaimed, discovering the conspiracy, the flier, and himself on the floor all over again.
__________
The flier, folks, was this:
ANNUAL GROOVETOWN GARDENING COMPETITION
JULY 4TH, 2018
CELEBRATE AND GROW YOUR GARDEN
GRAND PRIZE $500
__________
Hobart sat there for a while, eventually using the flier as a pillow. When he woke up again, he reflected on how wonderful it was to RELAX and then started to get up. As he reached the apex of his magnificent journey, Hobart realized he was tired again. He bent over to rest his fatigued shoulder blades, which were itching oh a sweet million today. As he horizontally manipulated his back in a manner reminiscent of dominoes, Hobart came face to face with the flier.
A gardening contest, he thought. I love to grow. Heh heh. He chuckled to himself. I am a man who loves to grow. A man who loves those inkly winkly plants. I will grow my garden, yes, I will, a grand garden, unparalleled by man, God, or beast. A garden that will green out the closest yellow, and yellow out the smartest blue. No sky, no wind, no mention of anything without reference to my garden.
Hobart looked around for where he should put the flier, but nothing satisfied him. He did not have pockets, being in boxer shorts and all. He had a minor sense of keeping things clean, so he shoved the flier in the waistband of his shorts.
What was I doing again? he thought. A funny idea came to him, what if…? He started laughing and then forgot what he was laughing about. He really wanted to know, so he bit his lip and cleared his throat, and then noticed that the sun was on his toes. The sun felt so nice on his toes. He stood there for a while. And stood. And stood. And became tired…
__________
Cut now to the place where the garden is supposed to be. Two months have passed, and it is but a week from the gardening competition. Hobart is not home. His house is strangely quiet, and, another time, if you come around and see it empty again, I recommend that you sneak in and check it out. You’d get to know a lot about Hobart that way.
Let us focus on the garden. The place of the garden is in front of Hobart’s home. We move our gaze from the house to the area in front of the house, and say, “I don’t see any garden. Where is it?”
__________
Perhaps Hobart gave up on the competition. After all, we barely know him. We find him at lunch with some friends. What is he saying?
“I am growing the greatest garden that the world has ever known. This is my true life’s mission. The moment I got that flier, I knew that I would not only participate, but grow the best garden of my life.” He smiled. His friends smiled. “I hope you’ll join me on my mission.”
__________
Not to belabor the point, but it is now 2 days from the competition, and we are outside Hobart’s house, and there is no garden to be found. A month ago we might have said, “Perhaps Hobart planted his garden, but it has not grown.” Do we say now, “Perhaps it is still growing underground, and a miracle will occur—“
Wait! What is this!? Out of the home comes Hobart. What an opportune moment for us! He is dressed as a gardener! Wowza! He is carrying gardening tools! Amazing! He even holds a bucket, a red one, and we wonder whatever for!?
Hobart takes his tools and drops them on the grass in front of his house. He is excited to grow his garden, but he is regretting the heat. He thinks to himself that before he works on his garden, he has to have some lemonade to keep him cool. Hobart leaves his gardening equipment and walks towards his house. Midway, he takes off his gardening cap, and throws it like a wind saucer toward his garden. It scurries in the air away from the garden. Hobart is disappointed in his cap and considers calling the whole thing off. He goes into his house ambivalently.
Well, we wait. A few moments pass, and we expect Hobart to come out of his home with a fresh glass of lemonade. He does not. An hour passes. Where is Hobart? Two. Hobart sticks his head out of the door, and we get excited, but he retreats again. Should we go home? We start to walk away—
A door slam awakens us from our disappointing stroll into the exit of this story. It is Hobart! He charges down the steps with fierce determination. We want to ask him where he was, but we are captivated by the fervor with which he grabs his small shovel and starts digging. Dirt flies into the air; some of it lands on his head. Hobart does not care. Deeper and deeper the hole; the green grass around him stained with misplaced dirt.
Before we can pat Hobart on the back, we see him running across the lawn to get this hat. He has discovered it somewhere in the closet of his mind. He has left a significant hole; a hole in which a garden can be born. Hobart walks swiftly over to a basket which contains…seed packets!
Hobart dumps the seed packages on the ground. Will he like Pollack throw those seeds here and there? As Hobart tears package after package, we become more and more excited for the rainbow of seed throwing that is to come. However, Hobart has a surprise in store.
Hobart, though still filled with the fury of determination, realizes that the moment of his artistic expression has come. The neighbors who are watching him expect him to continue his wild manner, but he will surprise them. He takes one seed at a time, and with unparalleled concentration, places that seed in the perfect place in the soil. He sees that perfect place by staring. Staring at the soil reveals divots and little rocks. There is art to the placement of these seeds. That rock. Seed next to it. That divot. Seed in it. Every seed an intention. Every seed creative expression. His neighbors, he knows, are amazing.
We are in awe, but we start to grow fatigued. Just before we fall asleep, Hobart stands up ever so slowly, and looks at the work he has done. We see him take a deep breath. He clasps his hands and raises them to the sky. Yes, he is clearly satisfied.
Now all he has to do is cover the hole and water the dirt. And then he is done. And we can go home.
__________
It is the day of the competition. Hobart knows that he is to be judged at 2:00pm. It is 2:00pm. Sometimes people are late, but Hobart is a relaxed fellow, so he chills out, puts on some sunglasses, sits down, and waits.
It is now 2:15pm. No one is there. Hobart, knowing that sometimes the world simply is what it is, knows that they will be here, and that everything is fine, if nothing else, his garden and he are here, but a part of him says:
WHERE THE FUCK IS EVERYONE?
He just does not listen to it except to get up and look up and down the street, and then to go back to his garden and polish it.
__________
It is now 3:00pm, and Hobart is angry. As angry as Hobart can get. Where are the judges? Where are his neighbors? His friends? Why didn’t anyone come and see what he has done?
Yes, Hobart’s friends love him.
Didn’t anyone appreciate gardening? Hard work? Creativity? Holy soul of water, earth, and man? Where are the judges?
Hobart, an explorer of the problems of man, leaves his home, his garden, and his hard work in the search of the judges.
__________
We stay, as we must, at the scene. Other than some wet dirt, there is nothing to see.
Coffee Robert
Coffee
Or Tea Robert
Tea
Coffee or tea
Coffee or tea
Say it with me
Coffee or tea
Ok jerk
I get it
But then
What’s with
The title?
walking toward the horizon
the day yet and never to come
the promise brought I bring
and never will i see again
the setting sun
I create
I been agin’
Oh my word
I been agin’
Oh my lord
I been growin’
Yes indeed
To the heavens
All at once
Every day
Practice
For this moment
I am movin’
Yes and no
yes sure
ok
not really
don’t
please do
ok, thanks
hardly messages
what a boring world