Smokers’ Etiquette & Science
It was just lying
there,
without volition
of its own,
a crushed, empty
cigarette pack
in about the
middle
of the park
footpath,
maybe 30 or 40
metres from a bin,
and I thought,
shaking my head
sadly,
‘Smokers sure do
tend to be shitty people,’
and then I caught
myself,
and castigated
myself
for my logical
fallacy
of jumping to a
conclusion
based on
insufficient data;
despite having
seen
a plethora of
stomped-out butts
and other
tobacco-based detritus
on the ground all
over the place
throughout my
long life,
my observations
have been
unsystematic and
without
scientifically
robust controls
to compare them
with
how much crap
other people
throw on the ground.
Bastards, all of
’em,
anyway.
Factors
Smart phones
Dumb people
That’s how the
situation rolls
Smart phones
Dumb people
Tumbling wild out of control
Smart cars
Dumb drivers
Unenlightened
about nature’s laws
Smart cars
Dumb drivers
Gotta eighty-six the human cause
Hot bods
Cold feelings
Forget the
losers far from the top
Hot bods
Cold feelings
Fuck that brainy, PC, no-fun slop
Cheap talk
Grand promises
Love’s gonna
find us by this afternoon
Cheap talk
Grand promises
We’re gonna set it right now really soon
Soft hearts
Hard lessons
The open door
is starting to shut
Soft heart
Hard lessons
We’re floating then we’re kicked in the butt
Smart phones
Dumb people
It’s so easy
to be mystified
Smart phones
Dumb people
We’re getting
dizzy on that downhill slide
Why I’m Not A Lawyer
I earned my
bachelor’s degree
in political
science
with a
respectable grade-point average
at a university
with a
prestigious
and
well-connected
law school,
but I never even
considered
filling out an
application
for admission to that law school.
Nothing would
have made my mother happier
than for me to become a lawyer.
That was reason
enough
for me not to
apply for law school
right there.
Faith
I don’t believe you.
It’s nothing
personal.
I don’t believe much.
Actually, when
it comes to, well, stuff
I try not to
believe anything,
although I
don’t doubt
that a
sustained, rigorous investigation
could uncover
instances
in which I’ve
fucked up
and been taken
in,
me being fallible and all.
When it comes
to people
my default
setting is mistrust,
but from time
to time,
whether out of
loneliness
or a craving
for love or friendship –
or any other
form of human closeness –,
I have let my
guard down
and trusted and
believed someone,
and of course
have wound up
getting kicked
in the arse,
metaphorically
speaking,
trust and
belief returning
to tarnished
memory.
No Polemic
I’m incapable of
feeling empathy
with bigots,
sexists, wowsers, prohibitionists,
and people who
are obsessed
with other
people’s sexual proclivities.
I have enough
trouble just trying to be myself
than to work
myself up into a froth
about who other
people are
and what they’re up to.
Sure, I
definitely have a dislike
and an occasional
unkind word
for psychopathic
narcissists,
maliciously
sadistic bullies,
aggressively
superstitious blowhards,
and phonies who
pontificate authoritatively
on subjects about
which they’re pig-ignorant,
but experience
has convinced me
that nothing I
say or do will change them,
so I just confine
myself to avoiding them
as much as I can,
and limiting my unkind
words to them in general,
but not
individually by name –
because that could lead to interpersonal conflict.
Dickheads are
everywhere,
and that’s the
way it’s always been.
One can’t fight
them all.
Just Like That
Some people are just like that.
I was walking
my dog
along a street
lined with regal oak trees
when she called
to me from a deck
on the other
side of a fence
to come in
through the gate
for a glass of
wine.
Fifty years
old, she told me,
and wearing
dreadlocks and baggy mid-calfs, I noticed,
she turned out
to be an attack conversationalist,
launching one
personal attack or innuendo
after another,
her objective
being
to poke
reactions out of me,
as she told me
after one egregious insult,
which she
readily conceded that
she herself
thought was awful and didn’t believe.
She seemed to think that I was enjoying this.
Some people are just like that.
I was soon
looking for a polite way to escape,
but she’d given
my dog a huge bone,
which he, at
least, was enjoying enormously.
Still, after 15
or 20 minutes
of sustaining
repeated attacks,
I stuffed the
jumbo livestock joint
into a plastic
bag I had in my pocket,
as a
responsible citizen,
for picking up
dog shit,
and retreated
out through the gate
to the
tree-shaded footpath,
where it felt
good to breathe
again.
Some people are
just like that.
Dalí Doesn’t Rhyme With Tolstoy
Dalí didn’t dilly-dally, did he?
Warhol wasn’t wishy-washy, was he?
Shelley shouldn’t shilly-shally, should she?
Wordsworth
wouldn’t wiggle-waggle, would he?
Kindergarten fartin’
played a part in startin’ a smartin’ spartan
goin’, ‘holy moley, roly-poly,
you’re losing your bruising and
your cruising and your boozing, whilst
you’re fusing and refusing, which makes
your schmoozing bemusing,
so you’re losing it once again.’
Meanwhile,
their cobber’s slobber clobbered your throbber,
and their clubber’s blubber
scrubbed a grubber that wouldn’t rub her
the right way
anymore.
Geisel groaned no gibble-gabble,
Chomsky chawed no chitter-chatter,
Picasso pooh-poohed their prittle-prattle, and
Tolstoy told no tittle-tattle.
Meanwhile,
was workin’ the java that was perkin’ away
for every jerk
and patsy in the park.
Dalí didn’t dilly-dally, did he?
Warhol wasn’t wishy-washy, was he?
Tolstoy told no tittle-tattle,
not a snotty jot of it, no!
The Consequences of Immodesty
She removed her hijab headscarf,
fluffed her hair a bit,
then wrapped it back on her head,
right there in the windy park,
far from anyone,
but I saw it happen
from a hundred or so metres away;
I saw her forbidden hair, I did,
and I wondered if some sort of hellfire
would ensue for me,
but none did,
or hasn’t as yet.
I have nothing to report
about any hellish consequences
for her,
but I think not.
Comments
I never listen to talkback radio,
but occasionally I fail to avoid
noticing internet comments
of the nasty and dimwitted
persuasion.
I almost envy
those internet Comments arseholes,
as it must be comforting for them
to huff and puff self-righteously
about how people
who are less lucky than they are
are really inferior
in all sorts of ways
(So much safer for the commenters
than claiming to be superior themselves),
and it must feel grand
to get a deep-down-in-the-glands thrill
from stomping on helplessly defenceless
people
who are already down,
and to do it
with a holier-than-thou conscience,
if that word applies.
Fancy Fucking
Lenny Bruce said
that the
difference between
pornography and
erotica
is the
difference between
plain fucking
and fancy fucking;
depicting
ordinary, everyday fucking,
he maintained,
is pornography,
but if you can,
as he put it,
‘tear off a
piece of ass with class,’
that’s erotica.
My experience of
fancy fucking,
way back before
old age
made me
terminally unattractive sexually,
was of those
times when,
whilst pumping
away,
whether with
class or without,
I experienced
the illusion, or delusion,
that I had
become one with my partner,
and that we were
inextricably joined
spiritually as well as genitally.
The fucks
resulting in zygotes,
to me at least,
were even
fancier still.
Repeated
Kicks Up The Bum
The thing is
I have come to
know
that what holds
me back,
that what’s
always held me back,
are
psychological disorders,
and I know where
they came from,
so I know that
the ways
that they make
my mind work,
as likely as
not,
are objectively
suspect
as
well as dysfunctional, but
the thing is,
all my
real-world experiences
of relating to
other people
and human
institutions
have consisted
of
repeated kicks
up the bum,
which has
reinforced my disorders
and provided me
with the niggling thought
that they
really are indeed
true and
accurate
representations
of my reality.
News of Death
One thing that I will never know
is how my daughters will react
when they hear the news that I’ve died.
I wonder if my mother ever thought about
this,
and if she thought her death
would provoke copious tears.
I wasn’t there to see it,
but I expect that my brother
play-acted whatever parts
he thought would impress
whatever audience he had
when he had one,
his mind, meanwhile,
focused on the money.
Personally, I felt nothing at all
when I learnt that she died,
and never even considered
going to her funeral.
I wonder if, in thirty or forty years,
my daughters will hate my memory
the way that I hate hers,
but, of course,
I’ll never know.
A
Hideous Deformity
Out of any
randomly selected
group of one
hundred people,
one is
statistically likely
to be
significantly richer
than the rest,
one is
statistically likely
to be
significantly more intelligent
than the rest,
and it’s
extremely unlikely
for
them to be the same person.
It must be
infuriating
for the cossack
rubes
to base their
world-view
on the hatred
of people
who are much
more intelligent
than they are
while refusing
to admit
that they’re
not really smarter
than those who
are more intelligent
than
they are.
Politicians on
the rich people’s payroll know this,
and have great
success exploiting it.
Wet Willies
One of the more
damaging
of the myriad
techniques
that my
two-years-older brother used
to bully,
torment, and generally abuse me
during the first
14 or 15 years of my life,
when I was
trapped
living in the
same house as he was,
was to use his
greater size and weight
to pin me down
so I couldn’t move,
snorfelling with
laughter
at my desperate
but futile efforts free my arms,
to free myself,
and only letting
me go after sticking
one of his
saliva-moistened fingers
into my ear.
I’ve had
nightmares,
more properly
PTSD flashbacks,
in my sleep
about this
throughout my
life,
awakening
screaming and kicking
and so badly
tangled in the sheets
that I’d fall to
the floor
escaping
half-asleep from the bed.
They reached so
much sleep-shattering frequency
that when I was
67 I began taking medication
to help me to
control my dreams,
and during the
subsequent four-and-a-half years
have only
awakened, shaken,
from fraternal
nightmares three times,
and two of those
times
before an actual
assault took place.
Not bad, eh?
Not good enough,
either,
but I suppose
it’s as good as it’s gonna get.
