It’s the morning of a different day—who knew there’d be another?
Lisa and I went on our harbor jog @ 5am—that’s nothing new.
It was, like 44°—we’re enjoying fall’s cold, refreshing bite.

Anyway, my mind wasn’t on it and I nearly stumbled over
a chunk of dark, uneven roadway, made invisible by its function.
Charles, jogging beside me, wordlessly managed to right me
without us losing a step and I smiled my thanks.

argh! I’ve got to get out of my head.

Later, in class, lulled by the comfort of the stiff, wooden chair, my eyes unfocused and the professor’s voice seemed to fade into the backdrop. Suddenly, he was asking me a direct question that seemed almost without context.

Metaphorically slapped back into focus, I scanned the room and the whiteboard for clues before awkwardly—walking the edge of catastrophe—bluffing it out, because, well, I’ve an instinctive reluctance to admit defeat with any sort of grace.

I didn’t sleep well last night. I had dreams—nothing with a defined purpose–just an amalgamate of bonfires and storms in a coastal scrubland with an odor of fresh cedar and a sense of casual vulnerability.

My attention today is like an intermittent pulse.
.
.
Songs for this:
Headz Gone West by Nia Archives
Dark Red by Steve Lacy

I wish I didn't know so much.
Looking at these pieces,
I learn so much
About a friend
I have no place to know
Anything about.

I love their simple drawings.
Their flatness,
How cute they are,
Even the mistakes that
I find so
Incredibly
Annoying.
They let me know how normal
My friend is.

I hate their drawings
That, on the surface,
Look like chaos.
I learn about how they see themselves.
I learn of their fears and worries.
I learn, all because I know.
They let me know how sad
My friend is.

I wish I didn’t know so much.
Looking at these pieces,
I learn so much
About myself.
I can’t bring myself
To say anything.

I love my friend.
Their distance,
How cute they are,
Even their flaws that
I find so
Oddly
Appealing.
They just don’t know
How special they are.

I wish I could say
I hate myself.
I may be chaos,
But in my eyes,
I’m so simple.
I learn of my fears and worries,
Yet, I feel I know nothing.
I’m not sad,
I just want to make them laugh.

Spin and twirl on the floor
Let the music take you away
Dance like never before
Dance till the light of day

Let them cry outside
In here is your domain
Let them starve outside
Let them die of plague

In here you are safe
Out of eternity's reaching grasp
Away from the peasants' blame
You and the devil laugh

Then the front doors break
The mob swarms in with a crash
Your arms are bound in chains
Your safety burned to ash

You're kicked and dragged outside
A rope thrown around your neck
You can see the hate in their eyes
You can smell it on their breath

The starving mob, they cry
Calling for your death
Their chants reach up to the sky
"Eat the rich! Eat the rich! Eat the rich!"

I cannot say if things are worse
Than times that went before
For I saw not that bygone world
Nor what they did endure

Where once their sight was short,
Now it's growing nearer
Starter homes that once held court
Go "green" like silver mirrors.

Elixirless were garden hoses
Plastic cups, no holy grail beneath their noses
Now all you have left are pictures
That time has robbed of hue
I study them now, and try to suppose it
The complexion hides no trace of youth:
Just spoiled cream and rotting roses
A foul-odored truth.

The trade was fair when young were the eyes
That fixed upon that crest, their prize
Now turned white with cataracts,
Still they **** it dry
And turn to bottles for babes set aside,
Begging pity for the old and blind
And anyone too far gone to toil.
"It shall be hard time," or so they cry,
"Served beneath the soil."

It's hard time indeed, that which is served
Beneath the ravaged soil;
So tell me:
Can a head that sold me, the undeserved,
Anoint itself with motor oil?

I was born with a Woolworth’s spoon in my mouth
not for me a silver stem and bowl
because my mother was a practical kind of soul
she fed us and she clothed us,
and she never forgot to love us,
then she taught us we were just as good
as the cutlery above us

~
Cotton duck canvas
on careful days
in a closed room,
intersecting tension,
energy and interest
for strangers to interpret

Three bashful belles
and lovers of art
undressed as a figure study,
cloistered together
in a line of beauty
for moral support

Their congregation assembled
in glorification of
angelic landscapes,
tempered by the mysteries
within convexity's arboretum

In unequivocal parts and gradation,
where good posture
and graceful presentation
count in equal measure,
to create Hogarth's
line continuous
--the Analysis of Beauty,
bended at the waist
to spread light through the canopy

During such exhibition
the belles whisper
under the rose,
of war and shopping lists,
they seem to avert eye contact,
gazes fixed to
the eternal sphere
ticking on the far wall,
never directly into the eyes
of those who come to
paint their *******
with sandalwood
~

When a class is boring, the air can feel close and rebreathed - not a comfortable feeling for a COVID child. When the class is finally over, it’s like you’ve escaped something.

Did you know an hour has 60 minutes because ancient Babylonians used a seximal system? (base six).

The class I was in was small, just eight of us around a table in a small room (four students were missing that day) and somehow the class had wandered into the unstable, waring, state of the world.

The professor ended his unscheduled thought, on the result of nuclear war, by saying, “After the nuclear exchanges, when cockroaches take over..”

“No,” I interrupted - it was a flashbulb moment - an impulse. I don’t usually interrupt professors, “Ants. Ants would take over - they’re mobile super-organisms, cockroaches are just meat to them.”

His smile and nod of approval felt warm and cozy, as if my emotions had a texture and temperature - but I knew it was something assigned to me briefly, like a motel room.

Nuclear survival isn’t exactly my bailiwick, I’m not sure where I picked that thought up or why I had the confidence to offer it. Confidence is a thin lever to work with when talking to a professor. I’ve seen professors crush brash students.

The bell rang, I had survived, and Leong was waiting for me in the hall. The crowd in the hall was moving on toward their classes, like water splashing in every direction. Leong barked a laugh. “What?” I asked.

“Neh,” she said, waving her hand (meaning forget it).
“What?” I asked again.
“When I was little, I would visit my grandparents' farm, in Shandong (province, China). They would call their cows in with a bell,” she said, motioning, with both hands to include the crowded hall.
“We’re the most privileged cows in the universe,” she suggested smilingly.
“I suppose we are,” I agreed, as we passed out into a wind as cold and harsh as witches' breath.

Lumpenproletariat's                     
Comprise the population
Revolutionized, new variants
Attempt consolidation.
Socialist experiments or
Anthropology's deviation?
Avoidance- societal detriments of health:
Classism's obliteration.