Coming Apart

marketing value of brains
marketing worth of knowing

college sorting machine

Murray from the Bell Curve

Just yesterday Lex Fridman, and this guy
odd co-suggestion
- do you think we are evolving?
A shared culture,
shared tastes and prefer-
ences incessant conferences

2022, and a few, a rare few, seeing
bits in patterns of eight,
2-bits, et cetera

Samuel Johnson, obscure as can be,
practically kabalisticly mysteriousus,
sum mostus
firstus, fundus mentalis, serpent mind/

Marshall McLuhan 1967--
Buckminster Fuller

The Beatles, et al,

Acid, Grace Slick, Tallahachee Bridge,
Rick Ridenour Suicide
1970 - too late, too soon, take your time,

put it back into your head, your head, baby,
it was all real
it was all real at the time, so long
so long, since we found some body

to love, till the end
of time,

tipped and split into ever more, after
never before.

There was never such a time as this.

The paper weight will hold
my ink down
in a way my fluidity never could.

No matter how violent
my metaphor, how heady
my imagery, how blistering
my narrative - it will hold
the reader's attention,
ensuring my thoughts reach
each reader's own resolution
a little before the weight shifts
and the burden of their eyes falls
heavy on the turn
of the page

and then their eyes will lift,
burdened with new meaning.

and we see a paper ****
and words are decorations on her body
and poems are pretty clothes for her
and this feeling is for you
and we see a paper ****
and a pen lying on the table
and you're the one
who's been silent
waiting for love to air
and the poet reads it

They cut down the trees and then urge the young to plant them again, about how life goes, as if age is just a number, and we no longer believe in power.

They cut down the trees, clear land,
make production, then shop spree for a vision and mission because life only once and needs to be enjoyed, wrapped in a paper bag and then thrown away and become a homeless person's sleeping mat in front of the overhang of shops.

We have to write a lot of essays
and I love it - the twisting of words,
the molding of nouns and verbs until
thoughts are clear and paragraphs
sit symmetrical and idealized.

I’ll write a paper, and scowling,
write another version and another
- lavishing them with attention
until every word is perfect.

I miss handing in papers though
- paper is substantial, not virtual
and even if a paper wasn’t well received
at least you took a tree down with you.

would i even recognise myself
without all these accessories,
layers upon layers of mere tissue paper
that crumples under the softest touch

Sometimes,
things are so hard to do
because we never try to start.
Prefixes
are always important
for finding patterns.
Like writing poetry.
Yes,
I have sat alone
in front of  the paper
on the table
many times
with a pen.
I thought about
what I really needed to do first;
beautiful words with parables.
I've been sitting for hours,
walking here and there,
then sit back down again
to finish composing a poem.
But I've never finished it
until now.