reading back my old posts

from 14 years ago

I always feel

like I did too much

but now I don't

scuttling cruttling

scuttling cruttling

scuttling cruttling

the crab who pinches and snips

scuttling cruttling

scuttling cruttling

the crab who pinched a thousand ships

a crab in a bottle

a crab in the house

a crab full throttle

a crab fights a mouse

scuttling cruttling and doodly duddling

every crab has his day

skitter and scatter and tickety tatter

the crab

the crab 

the crab

commander and leader 

enchanté

when it's a blue evening

 it's a blue evening

the engine in the distance

leaves in the wind

why not take a heaping spoonful of black pepper

straight down the gullet

live a little

time unwinds in a cool blue line

always pointing ahead

to where one never arrives

if only a bracing spoonful of freshly ground black pepper

could shake things up

my my my

what a rush that would be

in a dogwood tree

visible from the window

lies a nest hidden

by musty white flowers

boy oh boy

could I over go for a piping hot spoonful of pepper

send my sinuses into overdrive

send my taste buds to the moon

on a pleasant calm blue evening

the range of best

 I love that for some people the word 'best' can mean 'something they think is very good' and for other people the word 'best' can't even be used at all. Nothing of the world can truly rise to the level of 'best'.

People who never use best think that people who use best for things they like are frivolous agents of chaos. They only live to disrupt the natural order of the universe. You can't just call something 'the best' and not even mean it. Oh is that your 'best friend'? Is that the 'best meal you've ever had'? Yeah and what if money was just worth whatever we felt like. If we have no fixed points of meaning then we're adrift in a sea of nothingness. The 'best' is a standard by which all other things are judged and it's not something we can just toss around in place of  'pretty good'. In short, you shouldn't be trusted with anything and your words are the honks and squawks of madness itself.

People who like using 'best' think that people who never use best are just a quivering husk. If all you do is wait for the perfect opportunity you'll have spent all your time waiting, missed the opportunity, and pass through this life too afraid to touch anything. What good is an ideal to the flesh and the bone? Grab the world. Break things. You'll never hit a dinger if all you fear is the swing and miss. We know there is no 'best'. You're not special for being a strict literalist. What persists in life are moments of feeling and words should serve to describe that. 

big? compared to what?

 the first thing to be described as big

an age old mystery

some might say

the biggest mystery of all

the biggystery of all

my vote?

egg

the bite

 one bite will kill you dead

two bites will bring you back to life

three bites will make you go crazy

four bites will make you a

gnawed on scrap of old dusty

beef leather draped over the

banister of rickety crooked

stairs that lead halfway up

and halfway down to nowhere--

three fiends sloughed off

your sorry withered hide into

abyss but there was no

fall. it was a very short drop to

where you were.

those are the bite rules.

---------------------------

this is a poem about how growing up there would be kids who would just confidently tell you rules to things. I guess because they learned about the concept of rules and like, cause and effect. But, you know me, a sucker for serious nonsense.

one time, I'll never forget this, a kid told me (who was also a kid) with a straight face, completely serious,

 "did you know? if you can draw a perfect circle, you're the smartest person in the world. but if you draw the circle backwards, you're the dumbest person in the world."

And I remember hearing that and knowing it probably wasn't true but also thinking, "Hmm yeah I guess that makes sense."

a poem about the only thing I still remember from AP European History

 one day we learned about Pope Leo X

who said,

"God has given us the papacy, let us enjoy it."

upon hearing this

my friend Chad said,

"God has given us the Chad, let us enjoy it."