Devolution

- Descent or degeneration to a lower or worse state

Today there’s something to those pictures that makes me already look old & faded, even way back then

Always keeping so very busy engendered in me a background sense of comforting permanency

I ran the suburbs like a vast personal savanna and then crouched in front of TV like some smoky fire

Striped cat purred on top that old wool blanket on my tired lap during a tiny fractal eddy of forever

In the morning the world seemed born again until I rejoined the angry herd, in the smog, once again

The dew, though tainted with our mistakes, still made things look very fresh and wondrously clean

My takeout beliefs had grown cold and stale just when I needed their nourishment the most

I was unconsciously framing an apology even as I lashed out in blind rage for the 9 millionth time

Swirling into a hungover consciousness, I vowed one more time that it would never happen again

I grew confused as to what year we went where on which, long-anticipated 3 day holiday weekend

I kissed her again for the first time on that golden October afternoon, knowing she was gone forever

Given our circumstances, I found my almost daily depression normal, and my rare happiness a mystery

It wasn’t until long afterward that I realized how late it had already grown, even so long ago

Slowly I convinced myself I had lost my way, though really I never had a clue as to where I was headed

As my youthful anger slowly aged to a foolish bitterness, I still hoped to distill a few drops of wisdom

Even as we made our eternal vows we both knew that simple time alone would unthinkingly undo them

My seeming hardened indifference sprang simply from my being overwhelmed by insoluble issues

My safe habits had worn a familiar groove in a very small part of an infinity of frightening possibilities

I studied myself as I slowly devolved back into that dimensionless point from which I had no memories

I saw the four short seasons of my life morphing to an endless and dreamless, dark winter’s night sleep

A Mostly Empty Mass Existence

There wasn’t much behind their loudly-blared patriotism beyond a violent, media-induced insecurity

Twerking their devices was but the latest way of avoiding any unpleasant metaphysical speculation

Their lite, cool & refreshing factory beer was merely littered cans of empty, brain-damaging calories

Beloved news hosts were simply parroting paid sponsor’s highly-charged, truth-twisting fake news

Their sacred TV sports were devoid of real meaning but did serve as wondrous corporate cash cows

Dusty & irrelevant religious faiths were shown to be as effective as any miracle fat-burning placebo

The annual Christmas binge was based only on co-opted, hyper-marketed faith and sales guilt pitches

Their kid’s potentials remained virtually unlimited but...A dying world mostly denied their expression

Immersion in the richness of literary experience was replaced with a self-immolation in vapid tweets

Reasoned debate was recast as the simultaneous, loud & angry shouting of half-truths & outright lies

Sentenced to work til 75, most over 50 were permanently outsourced & broke - yet loaded with debt

Seniors searched for meaning in their empty lives via expensive visits with Medicare-funded doctors

A career spent asskissing, backbiting, shoulderclimbing & downkicking left CEOs empty, but well-off

Bulky legal documents, for which lawyers over-billed, were easily summarized in 2 simple sentences

All their pleasure from new ATVs & snowmachines evaporated almost as fast as the gas they wasted

The noble pursuit of individual happiness morphed into a meaningless quest for the Next Big Thing

The factory food they were fattened upon provided no real nutrition but did fill them with additives

Turned out the Holy Free Market controlled demand by depleting resources & exterminating species

Their greatest life experiences actually occurred in a numbed immersion in empty corporate media

All the sports stats, movie lines & snarky soundbites afforded not 1 bit of comfort on their deathbeds

Though filled with emotionally-charged & stirring rhetoric, costly political ads were very low on truth

Looking ripe & juicy under special store lights, BigAg tomatoes & peaches were floury & taste-free

Upon review, their many tweets, texts & updates proved to be as lame as they were inconsequential

All their patriotic chest-beating against gun control really only encouraged more meaningless deaths

They waited impatiently for weeks on miserly 3 day holidays, which they forgot in near realtime

The sacred doctor-patient relationship morphed into 8 minutes of computer questions & another Med

After 40 years of a wonderful marriage she quietly asked him who he was, whenever he came to visit

Most of their treasured artifacts were sold, donated or discarded by their busy remaining next of kin

They smoked noisily about in clumsy pickups with huge beds they strove to keep very clean & empty

They felt free to decry climate scientist’s fuzzy math though they themselves could not make change

Declaring people to be their greatest asset, they ordered new layoffs & hired more benefitless temps

Politicos had to be highly-skilled at taking 5 minutes to not even answer a simple yes or no question

The 8 snack aisles were a nutritional desert, but rich in subsidized fat, sugar, salt & toxic chemicals

Vast numbers were pushed thru schools & released nearly illiterate & innumerate - But prison-ready

The dignity & sanctity of human existence decreased in direct proportion to an increasing population

Every god’s brand of eternal paradise was a mere fairy’s tale but, at least, the faithful never knew

For We Shall Be Smitten

The earth lies defiled under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant. – Isaiah 24:5

But, we are as nature’s largest filthy rats: swarming disgustingly & destructively all across this planet

Forever making heedless noise, rooting up the earth in a toxic corpro-pursuit of individual happiness

Producing huge clouds of evil smelling smoke burning our trash, right along with the lilies of the field

But, one way or another all this too shall violently pass without a trace in but a wink of geologic time

Our hatred of our brothers increases in direct proportion to our own insupportably-excessive numbers

We routinely loose deadly force upon each other at the international, national, local & family levels

Tellingly, our species has even been able to bring on the 6^th of earth’s great mass extinction events

Meanwhile, we welcome our next Dark Age, braying a loud, scornful rejection of education & reason

None of our 1 True Gods can protect His flock from the blind natural retribution we so richly deserve

Yea, the soils that our corporate overlords have poisoned shall in turn strike them down as well as us

When at last it becomes obvious to all, we will grow angry, asking why & then shout: It’s not fair!

But worry not, for we will go down fighting: Fighting each other over a few pitiful remaining scraps

The correction will not be vengeful, but rather a simple, blind and natural correction of our excesses

Yet, most shall tiredly insist that our misfortunes are the wrath of our many & petty, One True Gods

For as the wages of sin is death, so shall our reward for ecological devastation be societal extinction

We shall be smitten and, of course, we shall cry out in fear & anger, begging for mercy & forgiveness

Leaders note: All of us shall be smitten, not just the brainwashed moochers who keep supporting you

Though our population growth shows a steep increase, its decline shall be far faster & much steeper

And there will be no enemy bogeymen to vilify as the poisoned earth adjusts itself - At our expense

The blind hand of the marketplace shall be shackled by the handcuffs of resource over-exploitation

& all of their industry-backed, libertarian, fake-news campaigns won’t prevent our fall from grace

We shall at last realize that we have narrowed our precious children’s futures to a mere base survival

But through monstrous brutality and adapting to disease-ridden squalor they may carry on-for a while

Odd fellows, as monks once did, will again try to save bits of our wisdom from the returning Dark Age

Tragically, vast quantities of digital spam, tweets, selfies, updates & advertising will be lost…forever

Yet, fittingly, a geologic layer of legacy plastic litter shall mark our passing…for millions of years

But, not that long for the trillions of $ worth of weapons & ammunition we have so lovingly produced

Beacons of freedom shall continue to comically advocate for slashing taxes & regulations as solutions

But they shall not fail to cut infrastructure, education and basic research while increasing dEfense

Yet, all the expensive lobbyists put together won’t be able to protect their wealthy donor’s interests

So, naturally young men will be called on to bravely sacrifice in holy wars over vanishing resources

And still, none of our leaders will mention our own overpopulation as being the root of our vexations

Lo, that rabid anti-environmentalist shall be put down right next to this squishy green tree hugger

Media’s Traditional Family Values will not spare our exceptionist children being punished as well

The seemingly pointless suffering shall leave us with nothing to believe in…and little to hope for

So shall our most rich sense of entitlement be at last fulfilled: In hunger, filth, disease and ignorance

Free Range Apartment Cowboy

Aint nobody ever gonna tie me down cuz I got my pickup parked facin out, right in fronta the buildin

These here rundown aparmints are jest temporary til we save up enough fer a few acres of our own

I’m might git me a horse and the little lady wants a cupla chickens and the kids & dogs’ll love it, too

Yup, I cun see rite past the dirt, litter & dead cars of today to our beutifuel future, out on the range

We’ll be getting away from that dam overregelatin landlord always whining if the rents a little late

I’m following my dreams jest like my downhome country music heroes & that’s what really matters

Ya see, at night, when I git back home with a 6-pack, I know that everthing’s gonna be jest all right -

Unless them hindis next door start stinkin up the place with they whatever oriental tofu vegan shift

I grew up in a mobile outsidea town with dreams of ridin free range just like all them TV cowboys

Learned ta be the man I am fightin & drinkin & dinit waste no time on dum shit like readin or joggin

At last I learned the truth about that libral media conspirucy thanks ta the good folks over ta the Fox

Realized that pergressives are wantin to give over alla are precious freedoms ta that godless UN

Don’t need that dam obamacare cuz we aready got a good free family doc right down ta the local ER

Yeah, that’s our old couch out there with the resta the trash by the dumpster…piecea junk

Yella traiters are taking away our godgiven right ta bear arms by makin ammo near impossible ta get

And the dam vaccinaters keep buggin our kids at school ta have em get shot up with they poisons

Well, between this rifle & that pickupa mine settin outside, I monna take carea my family

Not embarassed ta use them SNAP cards fer food cuz it’s them dam socialists fault things are so bad

I’m hopin ta take the whole family down ta disneyworld fer a real dream vacation, perty soon now

And I’ll tell you what, we got us a bigscreen and I don’t never miss nonea my Big Games

I rilly don’t get why the socialists aint down with just bombin the sh*t outta that stinkin middle east

Guess theys jest too busy chewin that overpriced organic, wimp rabbit crap ta figure stuff out right

Like them nannies gotta some right ta get all up in our faces with they Poison Fastfood BS, anyway

But, I can ferget all about that BS when I’m blastin a new trail way up high on toppa my camod ATV

Dont take no genyus ta see that jest followin the holy bible & our sacred constitution wud fix stuff up

But no, they gotta invent schemes like that bogus climate change scam ta steal our precious sovernty

They jest don’t get how their over-regelatin only costs us good folks way too much in jobs & money

http://fantasticblur-taotekaching.blogspot.com/2014/01/filter-those-bits.htmlAnd ther bringin them illegals in ta take our promised good jobsa tamara they offshored us ta create

Then there’s this bullcrap about exercisin – now if that aint nona they business I got no idea what is

And freakin whining at me about my BigGulp MtnDews like they was my 2^nd grade teacher or somethin

Tryin ta take away the kids Coco Puffs, Frosted Flakes & PopTarts - I jest caint believe this crap

Yud think good old Oscar Mayer was some kinda islamuc terrerist the way they carry on about balony

They say my truck’s too loud and they caint stand how I chipped her ta cover em with diesel smoke

Then they whine cuz NASA spooks are collectin they phone calls ta pertect us here in the homeland

Well, I’m hear ta tell ya we done had enough of they fuzzy math, bad science & one world agendar!

Cuz all were tryin ta do is ta carry on by our God-Given & Fox-Enhanced Traditional Family Values

Cowboy Dowper

Under the Controlled Substance Act marijuana is <gotdam right> treated as a Schedule 1 drug - the same as heroin

A cupla hitsa that evil weed & I aint even wanta smack the livin shit outta some elitist LBQT no more

Why, sometimes when I’m stoned I feel like putting on headphones, closing my eyes & bein real quiet

I mean that shit makes me real, real peaceful - and ya know what? I aint normully like that-tat all!

And, it aint got nethin whatsoever ta do with drinkin cuz I’ve had that under control fer years now

Yup, soon as I put down that pipe I’m all done with like jumpin up ta start swingin at some dickhead

But that shit is bad & I wisht I cud stop cuz I can see now that I’m an addhict & it’s ruynd my life

Oh, lordy why’d them liberals ever go and legalize this brain-damaging, family-destroying poison

Its getting ta where I caint do without a bowl jest ta calm down – after a cupla days flyin on Crank

I been seein shit that aint there and hearing voices thet’re jest in my head & it aint Jesus callin

I’m tryin fer Disability now cuz my Unemployment run out & I just caint stop sucking the damn dowp

We split a 12 pack ta get fired up ta go do a crime but after toastin a bowl I just wanted a brownie

Yessir, when that dowp got me so by the balls I hadda get on the Oxy ta try and regain some control

And them phony resurchers are all sayin its like 114 times safer than beer - Well, that’s a gotdam lie!

Hell, I lost my last good job due ta failin a random drug test after getting high the night before

And I know that shit’s corrodin my lungs - Why I kin harly smoke a cigarette after doin a doob

Futhrmore, I lay the wife’s extry 50 lbs directly on all them bon-bons she pops due to her Munchies

I’m perty sure my lacka carear motevation stems directly from a longtime cannubis dependuncy

Look, I’m telling ya, I was always a good man til Satan sucksessfly tempted me with his green bud

After doin up a fat reefer its way too loud & not even fun ta go out & touch off a cupla hunert rounds

Imagine! when I’m high, even the noise & smoke from my own pickup don’t harly inspire me no more

It’s like, I wanna fight the good fight but that THC just keeps me too chilled out ta disavow socilism

Look, the dam ganga is a real threat to our naytional security & Traditional Family Values for shore

I’m truly thinkin that weed is one more weapon in ther vast & treacherus libral takeover conspiracy

Dont these people know that all thru our vilent history, alcohols always been the self-med achoice?

Just how we gonna smite them heathens if our boys are all stoned out, layin around playin bongos?

Why, studies show them dowprs are 87% more likely ta mistrust the Fox, Clean Coal & even the NFL!

The thing is that the CIA&NSA been secertly adulteratin kid’s dowp with mind control drugs fer years

Yup, and that evil plot is bein led at the highest levels overta that sovernty stealin Unitud Nations

I mean hits getting ta the point where I caint bear the thoughta wakin up with even a mild hangover

And the herb seems ta be cloudin my mind as regards such sacred issues as gun control & imegrayshn

There’s even been times I’ve had thoughtsa quietin down my bigo-badboy diesel pickup

Shockinly, my ATV, snowmobile & jet skis dont hold quite the same attraction when I’m all dowpd up

So all I’m axin is fer people ta wake up ta this menace that’s slippin up in all amongst us, so quietlike

It’s too late for me but maybe my story will help save one god-fearin gun owner from this addiction

Yep, yer families & children are all under threat of this mind control drug they want us all ta smoke

But, pardun me, I gotta go off somewhere quiet & do a bowl - Givin up my sacrud furedom agin!

Confusedly Seeking Clarity

I get confused trying to figure out which lame candidate is reading the biggest PAC-sponsored lies

Its hard to fathom how slick media mouthpieces can scoffingly dismiss rigid scientific studies so easily

I wonder why we try to export our values when our own family structure is so very badly crumbled

I can’t grasp how coal gets Clean just by saying that someday we might shove some CO₂ down a hole

Why does congress get 239 days off/year + healthcare & pensions but I get nothing from 3 temp jobs?

Please explain where the Southwest will get water when their aquifers and the Colorado both dry up

It’s bewildering how we let the roads, bridges, electric, water and internet just decay all around us

I’m befuddled by the fierce & loudly-proud disdain for educated rationality that’s so popular today

If find it disconcerting that my health benefits keep shrinking but my payments always only go up

I get confused between the Ask your doctor abouts and the Have you or a loved one suffered froms

My thinking must be muddled on those litmus test issues: I don’t find any of them too very important

I’m discomfited by cooked gov’t inflation figures that just can’t include half the stuff we have to buy

I’m unsettled that conservatives only want to talk stuff like guns, abortion & corporate welfare

It confounds me that the Clean Coal people refuse to remove brain-damaging mercury...for our kids

I get disoriented in the black smoke, C0₂ & loud noise billowing off all their fat, fuel-guzzling pickups

I puzzle over holding the door for an equally-paid co-worker leaving early again to helicopter her kids

I’m baffled as to why we all need to carry assault weapons in order to maintain domestic tranquility

I’m mystified that real men spend 20 hrs a week staring at other men bent over in really tight pants

It’s perplexing how all political speeches end with an exceptionist imperative that God Bless America

I’m clueless as to how they idle in A/C’d comfort in drivethru lines while billions subsist on $1 a day

I am confused as to how our savior-ordained stewardship of this earth produced a 6^th mass extinction

I’m flummoxed hearing BigOil tout a fracked energy independence - Even as they profitably export it

I need clarity as to why no one dares even mention that human overpopulation is our biggest problem

Help me to comprehend why we constantly cut social programs yet always raise dEfense spending

It is difficult to grasp how billions retain any faith in comically-silly & truly stale religious franchises

I just don’t get how we can piously ban abortions and righteously ignore all the poor, fatherless kids

Why would we re-elect the old, white men who already sucked before all they did was just say NO!?

What’s so wrong with profiling groups if they commit most of the crimes or all of the terrorism?

I get confused as Neocons reach out to latino voters while demanding border security & deportation

I don’t get how people let snarky, paid, political denial on CO₂ overrule unbiased scientific research

Why can corporations spout patriotic ads even as they furtively move their headquarters overseas?

I don’t see any good reasons except for ad$ & Dem votes that we have to have everything in Spanish

Explain to me why we must troll fake news scandals instead of rationally discussing the real issues

Give me clarity as to why insurers would ever compete to provide healthcare to the poor or the sick

How can gunning down little schoolgirls earn an ignorant, brainwashed jihadi paradise and 17 virgins?

I cant see why they’re convinced either the constitution or the bible pack unassailable eternal truths

It’s Not About The Issues, It’s About The Spin

It’s not about the issues, It’s about how smarmy spin doctors can frame the political debate for their sponsors’ target audience

It’s not about twisting your wornout god’s absurd fairytales into silly pro-gun, anti-abortion diatribes

It’s about ignoring this human-caused mass extinction which civil society is also unlikely to withstand

It’s not about your phony political posturing, perpetual money-raising, foto-ops & legislative gridlock

It’s about the inescapable effects of climate change on all societies and the few generations to come

It’s not about their bullying, fake-media-created, propaganda-supported ignorantly-proud patriotism

It’s about the resources, opportunities & wonders we are denying to all of our possible descendants

It’s not about the ludicrous & laughably-insane sectarian religious wars each faith so eagerly supports

It’s about the already unsustainable, yet still-increasing, human population that is choking the planet

It’s not about how many new smartphones we stand texting, heads down, in long lines to buy again

It’s about our threats to so many keystone species anchoring systems that underpin our very survival

It’s not about our cleverly-stoked, quasi-religious patriotic paranoia over concocted political scandals

It’s about BigAgs guilt-free monocropping, water waste, soil erosion & abuse of migrants & pesticides

It’s not about your time-wasting but expensive yet absolutely meaningless corporate sports addiction

It’s about that bloated, wasteful, never questioned, yet ever-increasing, so-called dEfense budget

It’s not about flawed & incomplete, yet nonetheless, cooked GDP, unemployment & inflation figures

It’s about antibiotic overuse by BigAg & Healthcare & those super bugs lurking in your child’s scratch

It’s not about sharing your spoonfed beliefs & bowel movements on Facebook with likeminded droids

It’s about the dark cloud of superstition & ignorance that is slowly descending over us all: Once again

It’s not about constant voting to abolish Obamacare, knowing full well that it would never happen

It’s about not even addressing our failing power grid, internet, roads, bridges, dams & water supplies

It’s not about how good it tastes before it ends up as more ugly & dangerous fat around your waist

It’s about how it’s mass-produced and all the polysyllabic chemicals injected during its manufacture

It’s not about debating over which pompous, neophobic, old, white man is the most Conservative

It’s about factory fishing legally stripmining all the vast oceans for AllYouCanEat weekday nites out

It’s not about cheap air-conditioning provided by burning industry advertising’s fictional Clean Coal

It’s about coal’s mercury in your child’s brain, mountain top removal & record, coal-fired CO₂ levels

It’s not about your anti-environmentalist, black-belching, unmuffled, Faux-NASCAR-Military pickup

It’s about a proudly-loud ignorance which thoughtlessly destroys that which sustains such empty lives

It’s not about the artificially-created gravitas of abortion, gay marriage or gun control to either side

It’s about the 54% of black children who don’t have fathers & the 88% of them who live in poverty

It’s not about your constitutional right to rip new bandit ATV trails all across your federal lands

It’s about fixing a broken healthcare system – not merely wastefully subsidizing it thru Obamacare

It’s not about our CEO’s all-consuming focus on stock prices simply to earn yet another obscene bonus

It’s about absent corporate morality and their right to unlimited, anonymous, free speech donations

It’s not about the totally imaginary, so-called will of any of your archaic & wildly-implausible saviors

It’s about simply doing the right thing even in the face of the onrushing and inescapable, eternal void

Just Outside Our Pre-Programmed Maya

Maya – fr. Sanskrit, The illusory reality of the material world

Dirty rain can’t penetrate the pavement, so it quickly washes our wastes straight down to the rivers

Our billion tiny non-point sources are an uncontrolled runoff into their unsafe drinking water intakes

The magnitude of the devastation would simply overwhelm our minds, so we just smile and carry on

We are as hungry dreaming automatons meeting our simple swarm needs in strictly programmed ways

The vast fecal output of the mega-chicken farms leaches off & turns the bays & water supplies green

Every single home drips a thousand different chemicals, each and every time it rains

The innocent pigs imprisoned by the thousands stamp their contaminated waste into the groundwater

Model families spray poison on their flowers and over-apply everything to their artificial bluegrass

Abandoned sites still filter PCBs into streams and bays as well as into the flesh of nearby inhabitants

But, we are assured, this poison uptake issue cannot cross the species line separating us from animals

A dead space the size of Massachusetts is excreted from the Mississippi’s anus we call New Orleans

We tack up flimsy cellophane protective barriers around the new chancres of our ongoing progress

We roar across the shrunken Western reservoirs drunkenly shouting above our 500 horsepower din

Meanwhile, hot desert winds harshly evaporate the precious water at an astoundingly rapid pace

And yet, every single drop is spoken for, spoken for several times, in over-allocated state compacts

So, we clean out their upstream poopie but still drink of their vast array of chemicals and hormones

Turns out it’s far more cost effective to just warn of poisoned waters than to actually clean them up

Your kids should never swim with the remaining fish which we have tainted too badly for us to eat

But it’s OK, my precious children, you can always drink bottled New Jersey water & toss the plastic

And you won’t have to fret, cause you never saw, or even knew about, anything that was any better

Heavy factory fleet nets smash coral reefs that are already bleached out and dying from the warming

That’s after they came by with arsenic and dynamite to stun and paralyze their prey

A dead bycatch of seabirds, dolphins, albatross, marlin, sharks and rays bobs lazily in their wake

But, they’ve externalized the costs of ocean strip-mining so you can simply enjoy our weekly special

We institutionalize warfare, glorify suffering and commit ever-spiraling sums to our so-called dEfense

Only the truly wacked-out dare suggest that our divine Jihads simply quicken our own destruction

Countries encourage defensive population growth only to then fight resource wars to feed them

Conflict is simply inevitable so we know research to eradicate it would just be more socialist waste

We snicker at their fairytale squishy nonsense regarding climate change as well as global warming

Libtards dont dare ever mention how much money and how many jobs it would cost to even try to fix

And proudly every family joins the battle by adjusting home thermostats to their personal comfort

But one-worlders keep twisting out of context, junk science in their vast, conspiratorial takeover plot

And every single morning brings another half a million mouths to try and feed sustainably...

But only fascists whisper against the will of all our gods regarding our duty to be fruitful & multiply

So each day we add to our responsibility to squeeze out just a little more from just a little bit less

And no government dares think beyond simple food, shelter & jobs…and new breaks for the very rich

Openly Gray

Filial piety is a Confucian value that sets an expectation for children to respect and care for their elders

We’re shuffling slowly out of assisted living, squinting against the sun, to demand our equal rights

I’m dropping the shoe polish color hair dye that doesn’t even fool my smartass grandkids anymore

The wife’s not gonna get botoxed again, but she hopes to keep the frozen smile for a while

It’s just that we’re plain tired of simply looking really stupid trying to act more like the living again

Sick of paying all these different doctors just so we can have somebody to talk to

Tired of continually searching for reading glasses I can’t find, for ten minutes, ten times a day

Gonna stand up for my god-given and constitutionally-enshrined right to a freedom from ridicule

I’m done volunteering since we’re simply viewed as bumbling & irrelevant, no matter what we do

TV has simply got to stop giving bit parts to us elders merely for the easy, but degrading, laughs

We’re sick and tired of merely being some greedy, amoral ad man’s cheap comic sales props

And they better let them wave proudly from atop the gay parade float in their bikini Depends

Yes, we demand the same politically-correct media treatment as the blacks, gays & handicapped

Everyone needs to recognize my virility, driving by in a shiny new sports car, searing my bald spot

Henceforth, you must listen to me about the spiky hairs sprouting in every direction from my ears

Gonna tweet all the dramatically incriminating pictures from my daily dog turd inspection tours

And you best believe that I am allowed to keep telling the same tired stories over and over again

They need to start portraying liver spots as sexy and attractive in their slick marketing campaigns

I’m driving slow to save on gas & enjoy the scenery - not just cause everything’s moving way too fast

You’ll have to get used to seeing these yellow, fungused toenails that I can no longer reach to trim

Further, I declare that I must now be able to cast off my shame at having to pee every 20 minutes

We reject your ridiculously-prejudiced & totally false stereotype that we all look alike, even if we do

We must get rid of all these moochers - but don’t you dare touch the benefits I’m clearly entitled to

And you just quit gawking at these clown-sized, but quite safe, no-tie, athletic shoes that I wear

They must be made to stop forcing us to ‘Ask your doctor about’ like 1800-odd costly Medicare drugs

Look, just because my world is gone & I try to avoid yours does not mean that I’m totally useless

You must once again humbly accept that my wrinkles represent a hard-earned dignity & real wisdom

We’ll no longer permit them to make lighthearted sitcom humor of our handicap-friendly death spiral

Yeah, and you just keep your damn kids off of my perfectly-manicured, artificially-green lawn, too

Listen, I don’t need any more stupefying psych meds just because you want me to shut up & sit still

Everyone needs to start appreciating the vital newsworthiness of my daily bowel movement details

Hey - I really am starting to watch my health, after 3 heart attacks, high blood pressure & diabetes

Why, I take sawdust fiber supplements & shuffle slowly around the mall - Sometimes twice a week!

80 is, after all, the new 60 and I’m still healthy enough to enjoy my Viagra, so just buzz off, sonny!

In fact, I refuse to be ashamed of any of the 14 government-subsidized drugs I take every day

I’ve earned the right to eat, drink & be merry now - Without any fear of a healthcare bankruptcy

So don’t you dare touch my social security or medicare & grant me the respect that I know I deserve

Twirling Figurines

Events shattered my life into a million pieces, each of which continued on fractally - but without me

But, once I accepted the Word, all nagging contradictions disappeared behind comfy blinders of faith

Bouncing roughly past in a beatup bus, it really hurt to realize no one should have to live as they did

I saw the evidence of our progress taken from space and it was not pride in humanity that filled me

Idly spinning a fallen leaf between her fingers, it suddenly played a large part in her life

Accidentally dropped, it is instantly swirled away in that tiny stream by which she sits

She had been all the forever I had ever known, and as much as I had ever needed

And, as she left me so slowly, day by day, she made a place within me that was cold & dark & empty

Looking up from my microscope I saw protesters swirling thru the streets up there on the big screen

After reading the Fine Print, the Big Picture grew too confusing for me to remain truly comfortable

Multiplicative tiny mutations and then, one sunny morning, I would never again arise from my bed

But still, there weren’t ever so many crumbs on our filthy floor as stars outside in that moonless sky

Hurtling past a small turtle foolishly trying to cross that busy road, I briefly lost my sense of purpose

Oddly, their saving a 5^th generation single mother from an abortion roused no thankful prayer in me

As I grew progressively more unneeded and unwanted, I learned at last the value of volunteerism

I wound up staring quite blankly as all I had once been was silently emitted as invisible lost memories

Obsessed with her inability to control her kids’ lives she instead micromanaged her corporate team

Watching raindrops softly ping the lake for days, I realized that reality could move at different paces

Skimming the geological time periods left me with a larger sense of eternity than I dared to entertain

The spending excesses of our brave entrepreneurial class filled me with envy until I heard their ideals

Now driving too slowly, it came to me that I had become an impediment to their pursuit of happiness

Flowing on the busy day to day currents, I was only very rarely afforded a sense of my own mortality

Looking back, I saw only a shifting collage of randomly sorted images that I could not even sequence

But every morning we said “I love you” and every night would end with a gentle kiss

I always had a sense that I had time remaining for those many things I had chosen to triage for later

I drew few clues from bearing casual witness to fine things broken and the end of countless tiny lives

I danced along with all the rest to the time-warping tunes of the politicians and other marketeers

Too often I falsely promised that I would take time to consider events receding in my rearview mirror

The endless daily toll of species disappearing at our hands grew quite wearisome and lost all effect

Should our MakeItCheaper, IncreaseTheMargin ingenuity engender a stirring pride in humanity in me?

Upon my return after so long I was surprised to see how large the trees at our old house had grown

So, we twirled & we danced thru dirty streets under smoggy skies, high on a fat-free HappyEverAfter