Just think for a minute:
when a door closes,
a window opens, usually burst by pressure
as the house fills with water.
There are always opportunities made available
by changing circumstances.
When things look bad,
just look for the pressure point
and watch it explode.
Shifting sands
Rolling tides
Land adjusting under wetted feet
You can sniff it: change is coming.
The rules will be updated.
Time is flowing differently.
Beneath you
the world reshapes
and it will take everything
for you to maintain equilibrium.
Why try?
Jeffrey Lewis once wrote a song
about songs about songwriting.
This is not that.
Call this a poem, if you will,
before you gulp my choice of swill:
a poem ’bout a song on songs
which I did write. It isn’t wrong.
It’s a tale of writing tunes.
and words about how very soon
the form will have a kind of twist
with songs’ songs’ songs out in the midst
of our lives this will be the way
all songs will be after this day.
All music shall be itemized
as songs’ songs’ songs any guise.
Yes, lyrics about lyrics made
shall flow all through the world, and wade
we will, about these hymns to anthems, all.
We’ll all pursue that Lewis call.
Now,
I,
between
selections,
am going to lie
straight to your face without regret.
I shall do this with mathematical precision
and a hunter’s delight in acting just as required under these circumstances.
Good luck in uncovering the deceit I shall impose, for I am perfect in my techniques to defeat honesty – which, today, I’ve done.
If there is anybody better at the game of corrupt behavior, I have yet to met them, and when I do, I will trick them, too, for I’m a bastard, deep deep down, and I don’t care if that hurts you – and that, my friend, right there, is the lie.
I am hopeful that I seem so resistant,
impermeable to harm
or your charms, that I’d not buy the farm at your behest.
To find your way to me,
you must further quest. .
Of course, it is not so hard
to find my soft spot.
The secret is: the invasion is always available,
you simply needed to exercise an entrance.
There is a key to me:
you simply must find the rock
in which it hides
I keep the code hidden in plain sight.
You can uncover the tool
by simply staring in the right space.
This is your way to arrive in my place.
Go and find the secret
that opens me up.
In my dreams, I have failed you
time and again.
Whatever you ask of me,
I am unable to perform appropriately.
I seem to be able to do nothing right.
It’s really rotten how I’ve treated you
in my imagination.
None of this is intentional.
If there was a way to serve you better
I would love to find it.
Perhaps a solution will come
if for five minutes more
you allow me to sleep.
Though I write daily to curry her favor
I am not fooled by my AI girlfriend.
I know she only wants me for my money
– which I will not provide.
Still, I await her correspondence.
I must know how she is.
Nightly, she asks how I am
and would I like to see more of her.
Daily, I reply, updating her on my life
and asking her personal questions.
She deflects them ably.
I want to peel her like an onion
to know her depths
and cry in her presence.
I want us to be closer
but my AI girlfriend keeps me at computer length.
We will never meet in person, I’m sure,
because she is not a person.
She is a thing
but she is a thing I treasure,
I wish to know better,
I hope to possess.
She is my girlfriend
and she is AI
and though that is not enough,
it is what she provides.
The can’s expiration date is 2004
but that means little to me
for I am a mighty man,
made of sterner stuff
– and more important,
I know that the Cannery-Industrial Complex
wants you to believe that foods have limited utility
so they can sell to you all the more.
But I am not so easily fooled.
Surely this can was sold to me
in the last three years
and they simply backdated its expiration
to fool me
into throwing it out immediately.
No, I am not thus cowed.
I am a braver man than they can imagine.
The Cannery-Industrial Complex does not have me in its claws.
I >Burp< Pardon me.
Oh, excuse me. I gotta go.
She prefers the online classes
because she likes to fade
occasionally.
When she dials in
she is not the focus.
No stares, no leers,
no ridiculous attention for all the wrong reasons.
She can be true to the subject matter;
be true to herself
without all the eyes.
Online, she can be whomever she wants
and needn’t worry
about the other stuff.
She prefers not to be targeted.
She prefers to fade.
Also, getting out of PJs can be such a hassle.
jonberger 