Some More Human Stuff

                    Nice & Nasty

It’s nice to be nice

because when you’re nice

everything is so much nicer

than when you’re not nice.

Isn’t that nice?

Of course, you have the option to be nasty.

Being nasty, though, can make you a nasty person,

although even nice people can be nasty sometimes,

and sometimes even nasty people can be, well, nice,

and sometimes it’s nice to be nasty,

or nasty to be too bloody nice.

Depends on what meanings you load onto the words, eh?

Some people put on a big front about how nice they are,

when they’re really nasty right down to their core,

and some people put up a big front about being nasty

because they’re afraid of what’d happen

if people were to find out that they’re actually nice.

It’s bad form to be nasty to someone who’s being nice,

but are people who act nice in response to nastiness saps,

or just cunningly passive-aggressive,

expressing nastiness in a nice way?

When people are being nice to me I usually wonder

if they’re Just Being Nice and don’t really mean it.

Pain is nasty.

Nice music can either intrigue me or make me yawn,

but I tend to rock out when the music’s nasty.

Nice food is enjoyable.

Nasty food’s better not eaten.

Dogs are nice companions and playmates,

but can sometimes smell nasty.

That first swallow of cold beer is nice.

Complex, dogmatic ideologies are nasty.

Hugs are nice.

Sex is definitely nicer when it’s nasty.

            If I Ran The Marathon

I can picture myself slogging away smoothly,

keeping up the pace for more than two hours,

finally pulling away from the last of the others,

running as if on air into the final straight

almost a minute in the lead,

and with about fifty metres to the tape

tripping over some surface irregularity

and landing forehead-first on the paving,

knocking myself out cold.

                        Dodging Dickheads

One of the reasons that I make an effort

to stay clear of people in general

is that I strongly prefer to avoid

having confrontations with dickheads.

Not for me the joy that some whom I know express

in, for example, inviting Mormon missionaries inside

in order to have a bit of a piss-take,

wind them up, and generally give them a hard time.

Not for me the crossing of swords

with pompous anti-intellectual sophists,

hypocritical cryptofascist bullies,

or fundamentalist simpletons,

whether in Garden Place, on facebook, in the blogosphere,

or on the footpath in front of my house.

It’s bad enough to have to endure

the behaviour of tailgaters and the egotism of taggers

when I’ve no choice but to venture out of my home.

    Inconvenient Elements

I know that many people

admire, metaphorically,

those who do so,

but when my wash is on the line

and rain starts to bucket down,

I don’t rush outside

and shake my fist at the clouds.

I’m not defiant

when it comes to nature

causing petty inconveniences

in regard to my petty objectives.

A soft water rinse

does my laundry just fine,

thank you.

This wouldn’t be the basis

for an inspirational,

defiance-toward-adversity

so-called meme

on facebook, though.

would it?

           A Misnomer

It seems to me

that the term ‘clean-shaven’

is ideological

rather than descriptive.

If shaving’s so bloody clean,

why do people have to put

antiseptic on the skin

where they’ve just done it?

                       Barbering

Okay, it’s a long time between events,

but I never really know

how to respond

when,

any time for several weeks after the event,

people I know inform me,

“You got a haircut!”

It confuses me.

Are they trying to impress me

with their grasp of the superficially obvious?

Or do they think

that I’ve been trying to keep it a secret

and need to be exposed?

Or do they think

that I’ve been too dim to notice it myself,

and they therefore need to update my status for me?

Or do they think at all?

Sometimes I used to feign surprise: “Oh! Really?”

or claim that what I’d actually done

was to mousse it up really stiff

and then drive it back into my head with a hammer,

or some such similar nonsense.

With this last haircut, though,

I’ve been going for straight denial.

                  Some Kind Of Place

Some people are so kind and caring

and devoted to helping

those less favoured than themselves

in meaningful ways

that the consensus of those who know them

or who are aware of who they are and what they do

is that the world of human society

will be a much poorer place after they’re dead.

Some people are so horrid, destructive,

egocentric, cruel, and nasty,

feeling either nothing or smug pleasure

when harming other people and the world in general

that the consensus of those who know them

or who know more than enough about them

is that the world of human society

will be a much better place after they’re dead.

I don’t think that my death

will have much of an effect

on what kind of place the world of human society

will be one way or another

at all.

        Heroism & Money

Nicholas Winton saved the lives

of 669 Jewish children from Czechoslovakia

by whisking them away

from the Nazis in 1939

and bringing them to Britain.

I’d love to do something like that,

but I don’t have his social position,

my body is too tired,

and I certainly don’t have the money

to charter a non-trafficking

passenger service for refugees

or to pay lawyers

to do the paperwork.

             Taking It

Instead of ‘Goodbye’,

or ‘See yuh later’,

he said, ‘Take it easy.’

I replied,

‘I’ll take it any way I can get it.’

This is no time

for me to pick and choose

about how I take it,

but rather just to take 

whatever comes along

as best I can.

For me at least,

one of the most pernicious

two-word phrases now is,

‘I hope’.

      You Can Play, Too

Look before you leap,

but he who hesitates is lost.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder,
but out of sight, out of mind.

Home is where the heart is,

but familiarity breeds contempt.

Two heads are better than one,

but too many cooks spoil the broth.

Better safe than sorry,

but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Cream rises to the top,

but shit floats.