Staplers and hole-punch
Paper, signatures, and stamps
Busy, busy work
Audit error, office closed
Oncoming apocalypse

---

“If you are viewing this instructional video, you may be having some glitches with your audit processes. Don’t panic. From time to time, any bureaucracy worth its hole-punch will need to conduct an audit.

Daily dandy-desk-documented fun
Standard sunny-systematised-stapled hijinks

However, sometimes, there is a clerical error, or worse, a process deviation. If this occurs during an ordinary, 8:45am-5:20pm workday, the standard review process can be implemented, commencing on the same day, should the error be detected before 12pm, and if later than 12pm, commencing on the next working day. The typical review timelines can then follow, ideally 3-5 business days for information gathering, followed by committee consideration dependent on the 6-weekly cycle and agenda length.

Expected. Thorough. Busy. Reassuring.
All systems nominal.
Stamping and signing rates above baseline.
Working hard, at a sensible, sustainable pace. Amiright?

Unfortunately, occasionally,
something cataclysmic happens
bottom right on the risk matrix
(likelihood=E (rare) x consequence=5 (catastrophic))

Hold onto your staplers…
A fault occurs during the audit.
An audit error in the error audit.
This results in the dreaded, circular,
Paper Ouroboros Paradox.  
At this point, the
perfectly procedured
copybook committeed
faultlessly filed
bureaucracy
will implode.

The only way of avoiding POP is
a concurrent process to audit the
audit, we call this The Meta Audit.  
The bookish amongst you may want to say
that would increase the circularity
(moving POP from likelihood=E, to D!)
Don’t worry, we run the Meta Meta
Audit to make sure that never happens.

Our favourite galactic bureaucrat avatars, the Vogons, were the first race to encounter the pure, paper-curling hell of TMA. That is why these instructions are written in poetry, of sorts. But not Vogon-authored poetry, of course, even though
the quality
and honestly
the policy
of the potential use
of these directions
or sections
or connections
for torture
Have never been directly investigated.

The KPI for TMA is known as the
Kafka-Cockroach Distance
measured in imaginary cockroach lengths (icL).

Under potential conditions of
POP, the TMA KPI KCD starts at
42 icL
     and counts down with
     every fatal meta error:
       -Information presented to audit
         committee in triplicate
         instead of quadruplicate,
41 icL
      -Audit presentation containing
        27 slides instead of 26,
        as clearly outlined,
40 icL
     -Email about colonoscopy sent
       to audit address list instead of mum,
39 icL
     And so on.

You’ll know when you reach 17 icL,
You’ll see the cockroaches.
Conveniently, this makes measurement simpler

Now you know how to calculate your Kafka-Cockroach Distance, you can audit your audits with perfect assurance and insurance.

---

This bureaucracy
Kafkaesque catastrophe
Dear Douglas Adams
Thanks for giving me words for
Processing my processes

'Put my hand in the hand of the man from Galilee,

that song keeps playing in my memory, and I recalled

Or I thought I did, I imagined he'd walk with me
and talk with me
Along life's merry (or was it narrow?), way

a light touch, his arm around my shoulders,
as boys are wont to do,
I axed 'im,
help me fill the darkness behind my eyes,
which I think may have been blind, at that time,

I have memories like that.
packed away in old memes. That mean something...
Gold-something...
color maybe, Goldfarv? Bloom.
Right, my augmentatious savant
looked it up and I sorted what I recalled

Google The Global Brain, Howard Bloom,
where he named a kind of
category of knowability. Memes, he called them.

And I thought, memes mean something more,
not Dawkins's, nor Bloom's, but these,
heteromemes bubbling out my belly button,
look real close.

Here a seeing being done, words appearing...

fractally featureless by the time a clock could have been imagined,

the point of the story was made,
and there is no end in sight.

Pop. Another apocalypse bubble collapses by mortality. Whaddyaknow?

What remains when a bubble pops at a positron level,
after the charge is touched and
the tension-power-loss collapses the bubble?

You should think, you know atoms work, this way.

Touchy bubbles disappear when their form is disinformed,
the wall of a bubble,
one quanta of power thick,
vanishes
as the charge that formed it flees.
That bubble,
not cloud-based, random super positioning,but
elect
tric-magi-tech, a touch screened
at the quantum accounting point of real-ification,
but, probably,
a bubble,indeed,
powered, one way or another, with a single charge,
Go, that's it.
(I charge thee, son Timothy, go)
That's all an electron does.
It goes, as soon as any sense can be made of it,
outa here, oughta hear it, clear,
ping. No charge, no bubble, but next sure as...
No, ah, when I think about that..

Hell,
somethi' from nuthin musta hapt one time,

but ya'll take no heed, this voice,
m'fallin angel, Tantan, droppin' in ol-fren, tricky hybridbast...

Noah was a tellin' Ham the truth
found in wines that moved themselves aright,
slurry tongued, and laughin' but pisstoff.

The idea of somethin' goin' south in a family,
that started up again when
ever Noah started drinkin' old wine, sayin' sbetter'n...

Old story, God damened 'em, not me, I just
built the box.

Who told you I was naked? Noah queried Shem.

-- aye, ye know, Noah was drunk,
No excuse, but you know.

Things were said, that maybe could be forgotten, after a while,

But those father wounds a man imagines worst
are the one's his son's forgot.
Forgot can't be forgiven it seems, sometimes...

The story being told is complicated. See,
the Bible is a lens,
not a map.

I've looked so long through that lens,
that I began to see the bubble formed around me,
charged powerfully with fear,
'yond my bubble monsters lurked.

But, my bubble bumped another,
purest of happenstance,
the bubbles merged and merged again,
their power building to a wave,
crashing to the shore and no more
was I bubbled in my safe place.

I found this trail up from the beach.

It got me much farther than this, should you ever
visit me.
Did you regret the defeat at Ai,
or were you
Aachen, bold?

No, irrelevant, obtuse allusion to Yahshua,
that's not in the stack,
that card's about as relevant as McLuhan's hair of the dog.

Information unformed begins to boil deep in me.

Somethin', ain't it?  All them three meter dishes shrunk down
to the size of a spoon, a teeny weeny spoon, a coke spoon,
like on Miami Vice, back when.

Satellite TV changed the desert, fer sher, but 4g, brohan,

that was the trick. Elect trick.
Future, on demand, where outhouses are still de rigueur.

Before you know it, country kids,
too poor for any but outlaw dreams,
can audit courses at MIT,
if somebody
shows him, it can be done, prove t' him
it works, faith can make things happen,
but
happening as an event, in the Deep Field,
is sorta hard to nail down to one thing,
until the very last
Planc-sec.  
Astrophysics is part of the metagame, fer sher.
But
there's some stuff that takes some patience,
to learn. Fifty year'r longer.

Everything that's old and still works is only old, not rotten.

Olde time religion, at the oldfo'k dayroom,
where the clock runs the whole show.
It's another game show. Saint Bob Barker takes a bow,
and declares the potential worth of all your eyes behold,
behind the curtain,
lies the prize.

If, if, if you are a luckywinner and
you arise when I call your name
to come on down,
fall on your knees and declare the worth...

pure gamesmanships required here, golf whispers only,
worship, 'smuch more difficult to aim for than praise.
I agree.
Praise, appraisal, worthyness, worthship, prize, what's the diff?
How comes a thing to be worthy,
in your estimation? Tell me no lie.

A feeling? What's it worth?
Depends.
Safe? Priceless! Don't shout. There's money to make.

'Got a busy-ness pre-positioned high above the rest.
A super-positioned superstion. The darkness.
See, safety is a human right.
So we sell walls, impermeable. It's always, lights on
within, then
We'll be rich and powerful wallbuilding,
citi-zen warriors fed and fattened
by those we make
feel safe, from the dark unknowns seeping in.

That's the idea. It's worked for years, at least
since
we saw the Power in Myth and
capitalized Campbell's bliss and Sagan's billions and billions of stars.

Within these walls workers will work for food and a feeling.
And Facebook.
They choose a place and stand, and do what comes to hand.
Heartily
grip what's easiest for you to hold on to,
they are told.

Attendants bring the meds, settling every disruption
of the peace the patient craves in his comfort.
The price ain't right, m'mouthmumbles...

You are absolutely co-rect-allatime, tekayepeel.

There are wishes being made,
on all manner of stars
for happy ever afters.

If wishes were askings, what if
connecting to the source of haps which,
every expert knows, haps are
all happiness can possibly
consist of.
Oh, consist.
That sticky, gluteny idea stuck in my daily bread.
It's related to resist, desist and the command to stand.
Sistere. Shield-wall and all that. Turtles all the way down.

A disruption!
Day room Now! Granpa's shouting,

This is that bomb, this is a dam buster Jesus H Christ Bomb!
I'll drop it. I swear.

Something's bound on earth to go wrong,
ever since Eve bit that apple, if she'da left that apple on the apple tree
Nah, that ain't how it went down and
songs about it don't change it none.

But, maybe this is me interrupted... in my meander.

What if, nothing is immaterial,
as an idea, it can't go wrong,
and Murphy's law, obeyed, is good, all the time.
If nothing can go wrong, it won't.
Ask the pilot flying by faith in his checklist.

What if,
asking for help helps?
Was that a message? A touch by an angel?
Spirit, the idea? An answered prayer?

Are you familiar with its role in reality?
Something makes these bubbles spin, y'know.

Ignoring is bliss, nay,
No more,
precisely, nevermore,
quoth the raven, shall the man who can read
be locked away from all the stories,
telling eventualities that
men, wombed and un,
have told and tested for ever, it seems,

Stop
striving for perfection and let patience have her way witcha,

whatcha learn can change the world.

Look back. Good news from a far country come our way.
Grandpa made some sense and we built a fort, of pillows

To put our current legal situation into context you have to ask one basic question; what is law? Is law as we have been lead to believe, the codification of statutes defining what is illegal or not? Or is there some inherent property of moral righteousness that must exist for that law to have force?

I will argue that there is a moral component of law that must be present to make the system of law work. I am, of course, aware that there are many places that laws are passed that have no moral basis at all. There are dictatorships around the world that oppress their peoples and use their codified statutes to imprison and **** any who dissent.

The ultimate example of this is was the **** Germany government who made it legal to **** Jews. It was not only legal, but a system of laws was implemented to guide their extermination. But those laws, even though written out with penalties for those who did not follow them by the legislature, were illegal.

It is a basic component of the human being to know right from wrong. It is the reason that human beings set up laws in the first place. They are set up to make sure that innocents are not victimized by the predacious in our societies. In virtually every place that a human society exists, whether on a group, tribal or civilization level, there are always laws that govern behavior. Even those that break the laws have a sense of righteousness. In prison populations, if the prisoners feel that they are being treated in a fair and just manner they will comply with the rules and follow the system. Take away that feeling of just and fair treatment and prison riots and mayhem ensues. The prisoners realize that they have broken the law and when treated humanely will accept their punishment for the most part. The prisoners know that they have committed a wrong and they knew the possible penalty beforehand and knew what they risked. If torture, mal-treatment and other injuries are added to the punishment then a situation of self-righteousness is set up. The only way to control a prison population under those circumstances is with solitary confinement and complete isolation; if left to exist within prison society it would quickly conflagrate into confrontation.

In places where law exists without any moral authority there is always rebellion brewing just under the surface of society. The dictators and bureaucracies of these societies must rule with an iron fist because they know that one moment of slackness will have them swept from power and executed or exiled. Every single individual who is subject to these laws knows that they are illegal. How can they be illegal if they are written into law you might ask; Is that not the definition of law?

My argument is that it is the moral component of the law that is essential for it to work. It has nothing to with writing a statute and everything to do with human nature. We are after all the ones who create the laws, then write them and in the end follow them. It is at the very core of our nature to organize and codify law because we are innately social by nature and always end up forming some type of society that must have rules. It is also our own feeling of self-righteousness that makes us create the laws.

Certain things are innately wrong and one person should not be able to do this or that to another, and that is the basic creator of law. Laws don’t start out as regulations to govern society. They start out as basic rules of moral behavior; don’t steal from those in our community, don’t **** anyone and don’t try to take my wife. It is this same sense of self-righteousness that drives us to rebel when we know that a law is being applied without any righteous basis.

Take traffic laws for an example. Someone is driving down the highway when they suddenly see blue lights in the rearview. They were oblivious to their speed, lost in thought, and look down at the speedometer and see that they are doing 70 M.P.H. When the cop walks up and gives them a speeding ticket for doing 70 M.P.H. in a 50 M.P.H zone, there is little room for self-righteousness. Most people knowing that they broke the law, and one enacted for public safety, will accept the ticket and pay it without even showing up in court. The next example is the opposite.

Someone is rolling down the highway and the only difference in the scenario is that when they look down they see that they are only doing 45 M.P.H. They continue on for a while, waiting for the cop to go around them. When they eventually pull over, part of it is curiosity as to why he would be stopping them. In this case when a 70 M.P.H. ticket is handed out the reaction is going to be entirely different. That person will go to court. In addition to going to court, if not resolved there, they will spend large amounts of time and money to right the injustice. They will actually spend time and money far out of proportion to the actual injustice that happened because they are self-righteous.

Now imagine that the law was written like this: If you are driving down the highway you can be pulled over and issued a speeding ticket at any time no matter what your speed was. That is the point where the law goes against human nature. People would naturally begin to rebel against it because of its inherent injustice. In the second case it is not only that person’s right to rebel against the law, but also their moral obligation. They have a moral obligation to rebel because they should be seeking to re-establish moral law. If they live in human society then moral law, compatible with human nature should be the rule. If this is not the case, then they are being set up to have very bad things happen.

The Jews in **** Germany also had a moral obligation to fight and for the most part they did not (With the notable and heroic exception of the Warsaw ghetto and a few others) and were led to their slaughter. They had a moral obligation not just to themselves, but to their fellow Jews and compatriots. They were obligated to save their children, their mothers and fathers and other humans and in the end, for the most part did not.

Instead they followed the laws of **** Germany. (Just as the German soldiers at the Nuremberg trials did) They agreed to be registered because to not do so would be breaking the law. They showed up in groups to be transported away because to not do so would be breaking the law. They gave up their goods and businesses and money because not to do so would be breaking the law. There were, of course, severe penalties for breaking the law such as being imprisoned or just disappearing into the night and that drove most to comply.

I know that faith also played a part for many and I am not judging their actions or inaction. I am simply stating the results of what happened by their following the law and putting forward the fact that we are all morally obligated to act when law becomes illegal or immoral.

When law has lost its moral authority and becomes nothing more than something punitive to arbitrarily punish enemies then it is not true law; or at least not true to human nature , by which we all act. In that case all the law becomes is a fear of retribution. No one cares if they break the law for they feel no guilt about doing so and we humans, for the most part, are moral beings. Personally I don’t rob people because it is against the law. I don’t rob people because of the fact that it is morally wrong and I have no desire to violently take from another to gain wealth. I will die before I take the sustenance of another to live.

Once the moral component of law is removed only fear of punishment remains. If someone follows the law it is only because they don’t want to be fined or imprisoned; It I not because they have a moral imperative. But fear only goes so far; when the law becomes illegal its moral authority is transferred to those against whom it is used. They now have righteousness on their side and righteousness has a way of cancelling out fear.

Counter-intuitively, the more injustice that is piled on the more it is met with resistance. The IRA is an excellent example. By the 1960’s their membership was flagging and their armed struggle against the British was at very low ebb. That all changed on ****** Sunday when British troops opened fire into a crowd of demonstrators and killed and wounded a number of them. Instead of being frightened by this, they were outraged and active resistance against them doubled. A vicious cycle was started as the British escalated their actions in response to the increase in attacks and therefore caused even more.

The result of the British crackdown was the highest membership in the IRA in history and the start of a real shooting war. The level of violence escalated to a point never seen before and eventually drove the Brits to sue for peace. The danger of enrolling in the outlawed organization was more than offset by the sense of self-righteous outrage that was generated by the deaths and military lock down of entire neighborhoods. When one joined the IRA it was not a matter of if you would die or be imprisoned, but rather when. Still, even knowing what the outcome would be the ranks of the IRA swelled to enormous numbers. When the British military began a covert assassination program to **** suspected IRA members and affiliates, instead of instilling fear it just added to the sense of outrage and drove more to join and fight.

It was the (Legal) injustice of what was being done that gave the moral righteousness to the IRA and drove them to war. I bring this all up because we are now, in our own society, entering an era of legal lawlessness. We will be forced to make choices about how we respond when confronted with these laws. From the patriot act to the NSA spying, the NDAA authorization of indefinite detention, the IRS and the DOJ it is becoming clear that we are living in an increasingly lawless society.

The lawlessness is not on the part of the people, but rather on the part of those writing the law. The irony is that as the laws become more illegitimate the numbers of them are increasing exponentially. There are already so many federal laws on the books that at any given time any given individual is guilty of a crime. We have now become beholden to the very institutions that are supposed to be serving us as a society. Instead of serving us, the people, they now serve the bureaucracy instead. The bureaucracy and the institutions thereof have become the center of law giving rather than we as citizens. The law, rather than protecting us has become an instrument to protect the bureaucracy and punish those who disagree with it.

We have come to the point where our laws are becoming as corrupt as any given banana republic and if we do not actually want to become one, then we need to make a stand and say enough is enough. I am sure that while I have been writing this that I have committed at least three crimes; either by what I have written or done or thought or possibly what type of lighting I used. Do I care? No not at all. My sense of self- righteous indignation has grown to the point that I have no fear. I have no fear of death or imprisonment. The level of outrage has grown in me to the point that I will go to war.

Will they put me in prison? Go ahead lock me up with a captive audience and let me speak the truth to them; I will leave with an army of self-righteous individuals. Of course the speaking of this truth is illegal in prison, but at this point what is law? We all have hard choices coming up in the future; choices that could affect the rest of our lives and need to decide how to act. In the end how we act is going to be influenced by how the legal system acts. Let me end this with a question: If you receive a letter from the IRS informing you that you are subject to an audit, is your hard drive going to crash? I know that mine is.

a death in the workforce: the agency i'm currently employed with is under inverstigation of employee negligence... i have been asked to submit my social media details: thank **** i've had my facebook page a parody of self-profiling... now i'm being asked about my taxes... this is a very British, subtle, interrogation... it's the deep state at its finest... the shallow state is seeing postmen, binmen... street cleaners... police officers... security... that's the shallow state... within where society... "society": can have their LGBTQ+ marches and their Free-Palestine marches... that's society... that's not the state... it would best to make that distinction... politico ****... there is an investigation currently happening and it is done with the most subtle of nuances: more like cue:ounces:of:queue.

in terms of statehood: the architecture
and the underbelly:
maybe celebrity culture...
but there's this strata of the state:
a state is not society:
there's no biology no architecture...
the STATE is not SOCIETY

i think the Audit Men have come...
oh it's a little operation...
a staffing agency
ex military blah blah pound lb for lb
i think the Audit Men have come:
like a covert taxman
when...
ergonomically speaking...

unlike construction when a man
like the one direction might fall
from an Argentinian balcony only 15min
and scrambled eggs... **** me...
but there has been a death in the work force
suicide... some says dead-end realism
was a brain hemmorghhage...

the Audit Men have come and...
of all the people that abused him:
i was the only one
to not have any social media connection
with him...
oh it's fine: all saints' day is upon
us and we craft our new memory from
the memory of those dead:
the anti-algebra of schools
x squared in mathematics to x in the chemistry
mother mathematics:
father chemistry...          in terms of the Visigrad
4 poster child man of marble
new intelligence from the plough
Dostoyevsky's idiot
a Jesus on a cross or maybe Darth Poueuouloo:
Somoan ninja manster...
hey kindo...

             Wembley shift... these three *******...
Gaza strip paupers...
death masks and all:
wanna run up Spanish Steps: known formerly as:
Spanish...
now Taylor's Steps... ******* *****...
but bag matey'oh...
sleep one hour longer...

they are getting the audit from the +Stasi police:
the intellectual police of:
a citizen dies... society doesn't care...
but the ******* state bureaucracy:
the bread and butter shadow folk, do...
it's not shadow-state conspiracy theory:
but there are so many people around
so many ******* clerical cabinets of architecture:
remote working from home...
empty glass monstrosities...

we used to build with rock and egg and spit
now just glass and metal...

an "individual" is a construct of "society"...
fair enough: there's the playground
go and play, little child...
but...
             the CITIZEN is a UNIT of the STATE...
and there's the distinction about what
states are: immovable: unnatural: god given aids
to subdue "societies":
******* harems... ******* swingers parties:
communes: squatters' ***** ******...
an individual is as flimsy as a society:
societies wither, fade, become disgusting...
but... citizens... states... remain...
       like the Colisseum... that became Wembley Stadium...

three young asians ran up to me and asked...
are you a Viking?! are you a Viking?!

One check of my accomplishments,
But furthermore a verification for skills,
The art of conversation shall be my judge,
And my experience so far my partner in crime,
As the master of this angelic pen I'll suffice,
Even if they find me underwhelmed,
Or leave with disappointment without another word,
It is only proof, I have too much to improve to give up!
One way or the other, I find my hand guide the way,
With gentle movements, a delicate caligraphy has been created,
Thus, a deep breath, calming my tired nerves, helps me relax,
A clear mind is required for a difficult task after all,
And so, my hand gently, softly calls for the cover of this pen,
Time flew past without distraction, confidently,
Handing away this work I wait for the results,
Starting to become nervous down to my very core,
What if it wasn't good enough?

~ Umi

Took a trip on the Belafonte,
Bound with Cuba to forgotten Sanz.
Dinning on tin canned Del Monte,
A glass of Suntory always in hands.

Lloyd Faversham gifted salacious devices by John Cleese.
Used as props in Mike’s next gin stained showpiece.

The drum-line seemed irksome to J. Jonah.
He’d heard Zach Hill before.
Given limited time, despite the persona.
Interstellar fault found in a **** metaphor.

A swift change to an even more marketable sound.
Sparks didn’t fly when trying to appear profound.

Tiny teen dreams tending to tiny skirts.
Fidgeting with the hem-line.
Their just unintelligible flirts.
Stripping to avoid the breadline.

Dystopian fiction led to dissolution of fact
Can’t seem to see their world isn’t intact.

Atwood to Collins, Collins to a stupid ******* maze.
Alternate choice being a criminal thrill.
Simplistic fantasy whose only benefit is praise.
Popular opinion seems to be well over the hill.

The Street
An accountant went to work one day
Passed a beggar on the street
“Hey buddy, can you spare some change,
     I need a bite to eat.”
The accountant took a dollar out;
Pushed it toward the man
“You know, Bud, you should get a job
Do you have some kind of plan?
I see you here each morning,
Watching while I go to work.
Asking strangers for their extra change -
Man, are you a ****!”

The beggar gave the dollar back,
“You can keep the buck.
I watch people for a living
Some are kind, and some just ****.
I record all their reactions
And I’m going to write a book
You’re in Chapter Four, I think:
‘Those who took a second look.’
Chapter One? Those people pass me by
And look the other way.
Pretending they can’t see me,
Not hearing what I say.
Chapter Two is full of angry folks
Who stare like I’m diseased,
One of them once spit at me –
He missed though; I was pleased.
Some people give me money
Covert, so others do not see
Like I’m a change jar on the dresser -
They’re in Chapter Three.
But Chapter Four, my favorite,
Is the one that you’ll be in.
You gave me grief for sittin’ here
But you did it with a grin.
And you reached into your wallet
Though I suspect you had some change,
And TALKED to me a minute
THAT’s the part that’s really STRANGE!”

“Only one in out of a hundred
Will spend a minute of their time
And add some conversation
To their nickel or their dime
To ask what brought me to this street
Or where I’m going next.
Most engrossed in mobile cell phones;
Talking;  Sending text
To others who are just like them
Scurrying to work
Too rushed to spend a minute
With the jobless beggar ****.”

“So when a person such as you
Stops to give me time of day
I know he’s worth a listen to,
I want to hear what he might say.
And if you can spare a bit more time
Let’s get some coffee down the street.
You can keep your dollar,
It’s going to be my treat.”

The Coffee Shop
They sat at a corner table
And ordered two - both black
And the beggar started talking
When the waitress turned her back.

“I’m an author and a poet
My office is the street
I find poems, verse and stories
In everyone I meet.
And I sense you have a story
It’s my intent to find it out.
So tell me Mr. Business Man,
What are you about?”

The Accountant’s Story
The coffees came, he took a sip
Eyed the poet with a smile,
“Will you please pass the sugar?
This might take awhile.
I’m a professional accountant
I do audit work and tax,
And now, it’s after April
I have a few days to relax.
I went to college at a big name school
Then I passed the CPA,
Was recruited by a couple firms,
I started right away.
Been doing this for twenty years.
Senior partner after ten –“

And the poet interrupted,
“Would you do it all again?”

“I have a wife, two kids, and I'm a member
At a real exclusive club
A standing weekly tee time
(Sometimes I have to get a sub)
Because I often work on weekends
So I don’t get far behind
And it’s quiet in the office
But the wife and kids don’t mind …….”

The accountant’s voice then trailed off
As he stared down at his cup,
Stirring sugar round and round.
“That about sums it up.”

“But I asked you if you had the chance
Would you do it all again?
I kind of get the feeling
That your keeping something in.
I kind of get the feeling
There’s something missing in your life
With your country club and tee times
With your two kids and your wife.
And your audits and your taxes
And the partnership you’re in
Now go back to your Big Name School
Start the story over again.”

Accountant’s Story Two
“I was gonna be a teacher
And probably a coach
I thought that kids could learn from me
If I took the right approach.
And then a guidance counselor
Stopped me in the hall
Hey Bud, What will you study
When you enter college in the fall?
“I said, ‘I guess I’ll be a teacher.’
He replied, ‘The Hell with that
You’re smart, and very good at math –
Accounting’s where it’s at,
They make a lot more money
Than a teacher ever will
You should be an accountant
You should use your skill.’ “
“At the time I thought it made good sense
I was very good in math
So I took accounting courses
And have continued down that path.
That is it.  My story.  How I got right here today.
I’ve made a lot of money
More than you I dare to say.
So tell me Beggar / Poet
Do you make enough to eat?
Where do you go in winter
When its freezing on the street?

Second Cup
They called the waitress over
And ordered two more Joes
The Poet said, “It’s my turn
Here’s how my story goes.”

The Poet’s Story
I’m an author and a poet
And I live right down the street
Like I told you I get stories
From the people that I meet.
As for making money
I’ve published once or twice
Pays the condo rent and buys me food
The royalties are nice.
But writing is a hobby
I went to college just like you
But I lost it when I got there
Had no clue what I should do
So I drank and took a lot of drugs
Partied way more than I should
Till a teacher took me to the side
And said, ‘Buddy it’s all good.”
Get it out.  Learn lessons. And then go out and teach.
You never know who you can help.
Or the people you can reach.’
So when it's cold here on the street
The winter winds are biting
I’m at an inner city school
I teach creative writing.
And the money people like you give?
I pick out kids that don’t have much
Add a couple twenties of my own
So I don't get out of touch.
I take them shopping after school
And I buy them school supplies.
I figure ends support the means,
And forgive my 'beggar'  lies.

The End
Now you have both their stories,
And I might have let mine slip.
The accountant paid for coffee.
The poet left the tip.

PwL  4/7/15

Man's love of money...
I love it too. It results in
Food, drink and shelter
For my loved ones. But...
On days when my back
Won't straighten properly,
When my carpenter's elbow, rugby
Knee and boxer's hands
Impair me
I ask myself
How many hours I've worked
To pay just
Interest.
How many banker's cigars
And Department of Finances-
*****-ups I've
Funded with
What's left of these knots of
Muscle and bone that
Are moving towards giving
Up the guitar.
Haven't owned a new one
Since '94 anyway.

So if what I've heard is correct,  
Five percent
Of the world's population
Earn ninety percent of all
Money made.

Somebody very high up
Should be fired.
When I'm dead
I'll ask to see
The books.

Classic bier pose: eyes closed, arms folded over chest, everything aligned perfectly.
Peaceful, opposite of the turmoil in everyone around you.
You never did think about others at all.

In the flames I can see your body still.
Peaceful pose: gone.
Now: contortionist.
Eight-year-old Chinese gymnast,
perfect 10 I’d say, but perhaps I’m biased.
Over there the judge says 7.99;
stingy, just call it 8 even (or put the taxes in the **** score).
I think it was the stress of the audit.

That’s why your wife left,
the audit.  And the hookers, you ***** *******.
I’d **** on your pyre,
but all the alcohol would catch it on fire
and send it racing up to light ME,
instead of one of your nasty cigarettes.

Tax evasion, lying
(eight, count ‘em, eight dependents:
birds #s 1, 2, 3 (bird feeder pays for itself this way, don’t it?),
chipmunk, dog, the mouse in the cellar,
bird number 4 (only in the summer, not domesticated),
even the random fox), you name it.
How did you run that for so long?

Hero’s funeral, the great pyre, a pile of ashes.
Something a chimney sweep would leave,
and about as important.  Did they ever find
cause of death—the wife?

Good, I helped her.
She needed a shoulder to cry on after you died,
and you sure as hell weren’t there (typical).

A pile of ashes,
ashes to ashes, etc., n’est-ce pas?

you called me trash, a piece of garbage
so i collected myself and analyzed what
i brought to the table.
i thought about what i could manage
and determined the effectiveness of
my current strategies
but i concluded that i wasted my
time sorting through my problems.

© Matthew Harlovic

I put my hand in the hand of the man from galilee

Or I thought I did, I imagined he would walk with me
and talk with me

and help me fill the darkness behind my eyes,
which i think may have been blind, at one time,

I have memories like that guy, Gold-something
color maybe, Goldfarv? Bloom. Right, my augmentatious savant
looked it up and I sorted what I recalled

Google The Global Brain, where he named a kind of
category of knowability. Memes, he called them.

And I thought, memes mean something more,
not Dawkins's, nor Bloom's, but
these, heteromemes bubbling out my belly button,
look real close.

Fractally featureless by the time a clock could have been imagined,

the point of the story was made, and there is no end in sight.

Pop. Another apocalypse bubble eclipsed by mortality. Whaddyaknow?

What remains when a bubble pops at a positron level,
after the charge is touched and
the tensionpowerloss collapses the bubble?

You should think you know atoms work, like
not a cloud of super positioning, elect-
tric-magi-tech, touch screen at the quantum accounting point,
not that, but
a bubble, powered, one way or another, with a single charge,
Go, that's it.
What an electron does. It goes,
as soon as any sense can be made of it,
oughtaouta hear
ping. No charge, no bubble, but next sure as...

Hell,
somethi' from nuthin must ahapt one time,
but ya'll take no heed, m'fallin angel droppin' in olfren, tricky hybridbast...

Noah was a tellin' Ham the truth found in wines that moved themselves
aright, slurry tongued, but pisstoff

The idea of somethin' goin' south in a family,
that started up again when
ever Noah started drinkin' old wine, sayin' sbetter'n...

Who told you I was naked?

-- aye, ye know, Noah was drunk,
No excuse, but you know.

Things were said, that maybe were forgotten, after a while,

But those father wounds a man imagines worst
are the one's his son's forgot.

The story being told is complicated. See,
the Bible is a lens,
not a map.

It got me much farther than this, should you ever
visit me.
No,
that's not in the stack,
that card's about as relevant as McLuhan's hair of the dog.

Somethin', ain't it?  All them three meter dishes shrunk down
to the size of a spoon, a teeny weeny spoon, a coke spoon,
like on Miami Vice, back when.

Satellite TV changed the desert, fer sher, but 4g, brohan,

that was the trick.
Future, on demand, where outhouses are still de rigueur.

Before you know it, country kids,
too poor for any but outlaw dreams,
can audit courses at MIT,
if somebody
shows him, it can be done, prove t' him
it works, faith can make things happen,
but
happening is sorta hard to nail down to one thing,
until the very last
Planc-sec.  Astrophysics is part of the metagame, fer sher.
But
there's some stuff that takes some patience,

everything that's old is only old, not rotten.

Olde time religion, at the oldfo'k dayroom,
where the clock runs the whole show.
It's another game show. Saint Bob Barker takes a bow,
and declares the worth of all your eyes behold,

If, if, if you are alucky winner and you arise when I call your name
to come on down
fall on your knees and declare the worth...

pure gamesmanships required here, golf whispers only,
worship, smuch more difficult to aim for than praise.
I agree.
Praise, appraisal, worthyness, worthship, prize,
how do you declare such a thing worthy,

A feeling? What's it worth? Depends. Safe? Priceless. Don't shout.

So we sell walls. We'll be rich and powerful wallbuilding,
citi-zen warriors fed and fattened by those we make
feel safe.

That's the idea. It's worked for years, at least
since
we
capitalized Campbell's bliss and Sagan's billions and billions of stars.

Workers will work for food and a feeling. And Facebook.
They choose, believe what's easiest, they are told,
you are absolutely co-rectallatime, tekayepeel.

There are such wishes being made, on all manner of stars
for happy ever afters. If wishes were asked for, whatif
connecting to the source of haps that are
all happiness can possibly
consist of...
Oh, consist is a sticky, gluten idea stuck in my daily bread.
It's related to resist, desist and the command to stand. Sistere.

This is that bomb, this is a dam buster Jesus H Christ Bomb!

Something's bound on earth to go wrong,
ever since Eve bit that apple, if she'da left that apple on the apple tree
Nah, that ain't how it went down and
songs about it don't change it none.

But, maybe this is me interrupted..
Whatif, nothing is immaterial, as an idea, it can't go wrong,
and Murphy's law, obeyed, is good, all the time.
Ask the pilot. What if,
asking for help helps? Was that a message? A touch by an angel?
Spirit, the idea?
Are you familiar with its role in reality?
Something makes these bubbles spin, y'know.

Ignoring is bliss, nay,
No more,
precisely, nevermore, quotheraven, shall the man who can read
be locked away from all the stories of all the things that
men, wombed and un,
have told and tested for ever, it seems,
when ya stop
striving for perfection and let patience have her way witcha,

whatcha learn can change the world.

Look back. Good news from a far country come our way.

i hear the sound of a voice
a voice true and enigmatic
and in its magical presence
comes visions of beach and sun
sand, foam and jumping fish
palm trees laden with fruit
and ancient canoes battling
waves all through the night
oftentimes i hear that voice
carrying my name on breezes
and showing me where i go
as the days roll into the future
and i look back and linger
wondering who's to be pitied
and who in the end envied
that voice is like an auditor's
wanting to know why and why
these many columns remain full
and how come my fun account
remains solid and untouched
that voice, life's inner throb
makes me sore unfulfilled