The Lament of a Pessimistic Yuppie


Oh how many deceptions to follow the pride and joy
Upon receiving the gilded paper that marks our education,
And death seems to be the last great threat
Before shame, guilt and betrayal,
Until we discover ourselves decaying...

How the carefree laughter of our youth mock us!
As we rot away alive and wondering how such knowledge has
Escaped our attention. The mundane routines of the morning,
The draining afternoons in light purple cubicles
And white conference rooms - the when and where
Of how we have been dying, starting from the skin on our faces,
The skin we seek to renew during weekly facials,
Those pampering sessions at spas,
(How we shamelessly display the profitability in death!),
Orders of miracle cream and double lattes,
To lift the flesh that escape,
Our weak and flailing spirits' struggling grasps,
The flesh eager to be closer to the earth.

Oh our tongues! wild and lashing,
Self-condemning, status-conscious beasts,
Fall from our graces in alcohol-induced states,
How easy it is to feign joy at evening soirees, to throw
The hours wage into extravagance! How we have come to believe
And voice the rhetoric of efficiency and productivity.
How we have come to believe in our own stasis, in our mediocrity,
Forced to divide simple tasks, to divide our working and family lives,
For the fulfillment of an illusion of order.
Work hard from 9 to 5 to 9! And wait to bore ourselves silly
With the drama of night time cable.

Peering down to glimpse the homeless wanderers
Crawling upon the granite pavements, against the marble walls of our city,
Starving and suffering from hypothermia. So we tell ourselves,
Work hard from 9 to 5 to 9! For this,
Is how we should choose to die instead.


2005© HrJ

Unspokenfor

Let the leaves fall, and brush,
all the words into the sea,
for I know, I know,
he'll never give to me.

So lets be quiet, and hush,
these feelings all away,
for I know, I know,
death's for but a day.

Then let me sail, and rush,
like waves into the shore,
for I know, I know,
really nothing anymore.

2005© HrJ

The Humanities

She had something to say about the way the light hammers itself into one's skin
but forgot just now.

And then she had something to say about the imagery of rivers, trees,
and mountains and their symbolism in her sex life.

But she forgot just now,
because she is masturbating
furiously at the back of the lecture hall.

A lone classmate named Maddox sitting in the empty row in front of her
turns around.
Maddox looks straight into her glazed eyes and whispers,

What is wrong with you?
..... I can hear you during every lecture you know
....and I sit back here, near you
because I know what you are doing
while the professor tells us about Frost and two roads
..and I think of your five finger dance in the fork.
Hey I'm telling you...

She's still masturbating away.
This time with a fresh green cucumber she has pulled out from her bag.

Maddox looks at her in shock.
Is that sanitary even?
She nods furiously.

She whispers that its a magic cucumber and offers the wet dripping to him.
She says it will make him grow taller.

Maddox is a dwarf so he takes a bite.
Immediately his arms and legs begin to extend like silly putty.
Help! What's happening?
She laughs and shudders in orgasm before picking Maddox up.
She twists him into a ball and bounces him out the lecture hall as class is over.


Copyright © 2005 by HrJ

Haven

The path from Eckhart to the Reynolds club,
a small desolate snowbed that others rushed past
while I was trying to be a tree,
skeletal. And the snow flew everywhere,
into my eyes.
Into my mouth, into my ears,
but I remain immobile, nailed, content with
my arms, those lifeless branches in the air.
My fingers curl stiffly toward my palms,
as if wanting to be close to me.

But these fingers lie,
the tips purple, then
turning grey,
thread away from me first,
and soon my entirety
will be woven into the bitter winter sky.


Copyright © 2005 by HrJ

The Fish

I dreamt red. where i was swallowed by a giant fish with purple eyes and the frame of the bed was rattling against my elbows and i was crying... "don't leave" but I left you. touching the scar by my left eye, you carved a greater scar than all the rest while that you cured. Let sleeping dreams lie, you said, but I'll be forever looking for your smile in her eyes. And so I cried. For you I was that little girl. Someone no one else knows as you know. And for them I will forever deny. Not your woman, not your little girl, no, not I, by the bedframe in the night. Isn't it surprising how words and phrases associated with a former flame become so sacred that to repeat such affirmations is to betray? The fish was asking me before it swallowed me whole. And I told it the red was delicious. that raw was delicious. and if it grew a tail I would gladly suck it and if it grew teats I would gladly milk it with my thighs.


Copyright © 2005 by HrJ

How To Shut A Woman Up (The Ancient Masculine Tradition)

You are delusional.
(Shut up)
You are delusional.
(Shut the fuck up)
Anything I say is right because you are delusional.
(Shut up)
Anything you say is wrong because you are delusional.
(Shut the fuck up)
Woman, irrational.
Man, rational.
Woman, emotional irrational.
Man, logical, rational.
And we are tactical: You are delusional.

(Chorus)
I've heard it from my father,
I've heard him say to mother.
I've heard it from my father
He's heard it from his father,
He's heard him say to his mother,
We've all heard it before,
How effective is the logic,
how rational the tactic.
Man,
Lusional,
Woman,
Delusional.

You are delusional.
(Shut up)
You are delusional.
(Shut the fuck up)
Anything I say is right because you are delusional.
(Shut up)
Anything you say is wrong because you are delusional.
(Shut the fuck up)
Woman, irrational.
Man, rational.
Woman, emotional irrational.
Man, logical, rational.
Lets us be tactical: You are delusional.

(Repeat)


Copyright © 2005 by HrJ