blog

pensées

poems

2020s

2010s

2000s

1990s

1980s

1970s

publications


dreams

recordings

verse


books

reading list

wishlist


The Hedonic Treadmill, Set To Eroticism



I am so tired of sex.

The quick ubiquity, iniquity of lust, us
this commercialization of cop(-a-feel ul)ulation
in which a society soaked with stupidity, cupidity
values only lascivious liquidity
seeks to elevate and enrich a solid
ancient night rite, right
overripen a natural rhythm
by monetizing it, marketing it, capitalizing a niche
selling superficially what was better bartered true
or freely exchanged as gifts of spirit and goodwill
more valuable as a commonplace
balanced upon the naturally rocking scale
of supple supply and remanded demand
the spontaneous cry of desire, fire
between waking and sleeping
than artfully, artificially packaged and advertised
controlled and contrived
as the ultimate commodious commodity, stolid
accommodating at an ongoing favor-numbing
gavel-drumming slave auction actioning actually
between faking and weeping
nesting and infesting.

Better when it was enough to feel good
for a moment
to touch another
for a moment, like a mammal
mole estrussing
and experience a brief knowing, growing
the creature comfort of connection
without shopping, hopping around
comparing product, trading up
and selling out to profit
driving a bargain down
calculating fees, taxes, surcharge
estimating hidden costs.

Now we worship sex
with its holey blessings and arrogant steeples
messy, peccant peoples, prying and poking
pray with our attention to the bodies that move us
or reasonable treasonable facsimiles
and to worship anything one must stand apart from it
separate and fetishize it, peel and prize it:
we paint it on our walls and carpet our floors with it
we plant it in our gardens, grasp at it in our barren games, names
whisper of it in a brazen shout
worded with euphemism and entendre
everyone is coated with sex
cloaked, shoed, skirted and pantsed with sex
and seen through special sex glasses
—boobs watch boobs
asses, asses—
heard only as pre-climactic chatter
the crass pitch of sameness and nameless spatter.

Is it the loss of class boundaries
the cracked glass ceilings for feelings, dealings
that has democratized desire, breaking it,
caking it on every body, streaking, striping, stroking?
What are the rules
what is the game
when everyone's a target
everyone's taking aim?
There…
oh, who is she?
Is she for me? For now?

I am so fucking sick of sex!
Sick, sickened, eremitic
(I don't have sex
and I'm sick to death of that, too).

His sex, her sex, their sex, your sex
old sex, new sex, show sex, view sex
virgin sex, slut sex
we-may-be-in-a-rut sex
fake sex, good sex
bad sex, food sex
rough sex, tough sex
"making love" sex
ex sex, cybersex
don't-leave-hair-or-fiber sex
joke sex, choke sex
c'mon-just-gimme-a-poke sex
president sex, clergy sex
whenever-you-feel-the-urgy sex
porn sex, pay sex
every single day sex
friend sex, stranger sex
frisky risky danger sex
dare sex, bare sex
don't-mess-up-my-hair sex
public sex, pubic sex
twisty Rubik's cubic sex
flat-on-her-back sex
and also acrobatic sex.


But every breath is foreplay
and every heartbeat
bloodpumping arousal.

Heard in every conver(t sen)sation,
scribed in every book and song
EVERYWHERE on TV
[all entertainment   (our media
                                 a reflection of
                                 our minds
                                 writ large)
is incipient porn
and vice versa]
online, mines, on the phone
in schools, duels, at home
in labs, at jobs, on the street, heat
in shops and offices, bars and churches
board meetings, cub scout meetings
planes, trains, and autoerotomobiles
in memory, in fantasy, in dream
day and night, fever
in photographs, in the mirror
every allusion, every confusion.

And when we don't see it
desperate we look again, closer
harder, faster
disappointed we feel cheated, overheated
we scream for more
we beg for whore.

Innuendo, double in tender
constant seeking, constant negotiating, positioning
arms so, legs so, smiles so
outward appearances crafted to mask inner feelings,
peelings poisoned, sanity denied, belied
so many in search of a reason to cling, a season to sing
to others, to life—how much life can we ever live
with this brain, these genes, this compulsion
built in? Driven to make life
not guided to live it.

How can we know each other when we can't even see each other?
How can we see ourselves when we can't even know ourselves?
When every may is deafened under a wail of must, a shout
enunciating grunts, stuttering proto-speech, animal moan
when everything is filtered, off-kiltered and half-obscured
(this half, then that half, then the first again)
behind a lacy veil of lust—lust on the inside,
lust like a crust all over the out—
how can we ever see what's true? who?

But who can remove the veil? rip it away, say, and bail?

And who would?

The baffling scaffolding of all lesser addiction
is laid, programmed, flimflammed in sex
re-pre-production, se(e-saw con)duction
it is the ultimate bias, fornicapious
and even to imagine stepping beyond its tearrible tyranny
is to envision an egosyntonic peace, sans schlepping
a qualmless calm
the world of monkey man has never known,
never owned.

Rapt in eternal rutty-smutty puberty
surging within, cycling
as the body rots and crumples without
we will always be hungry, hun-gray
always feed unsatisfied and starve large
whether feasting or fasting, feisty
and want and need and demand
and be denied
and buy, try
consume
and sell
and buy again
sold.

You are what you think.
You are.

All poems are written and copyrighted by Michael C. Rush.
None may be republished or repurposed without permission.