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Velleity of the Kine



Misophonic poets, impractical jokers
on a whimsical built for two, ladle a load
from a node of lodestone down your throats;
embrace various molestations of serenity
as plaintive as the pose you erase
with overpraised poise under a sheltering canopy
of bougainvillea and wisteria.

Violin with rain,
saxophone with thunder.

Ultima Thule
gibbous
yet incognito
midst the effluvium.

Don't initiate intimacy
with imitations of intimations
or seek and rely upon
"morbid states of elation"
or the rhetorical lyric
like those addicted to the cheap thrill
of saying reprehensible things,
the desperate technique of controversy.

How much of intelligence is induced?
Or repurposed like a whistling anus?

Art as spectacle.
Art as therapy.
Art as conversation.

Where have you deployed yourself?

Stir a cauldron of lice, pursue libido in situ
using tacit tactics of ectopic eyes, risible improper nouns,
subtle verbs, and adjacent adjectives to taste the flavors of truth,
declaiming of bones and skin, curves and cavities;

join unconventional covens (tradition is habit writ large),
covert, inconvenient—party with the embraceable mad—
or don't join, but make yourself into something
the world doesn't serve: ghetto sommelier, geek revivalist,
guardian of gardens, gallant, fecund:
curiosity's quirky mazurka has kept far more cats alive
than it ever killed.

The interaction of bunk with history,
though sometimes interesting, remains bunk,
but even a prophet of hindsight is rarely heeded.

Much of what we consider normal is very strange indeed,
permissive illusions, apprenticed to solitude
and the lubricious contours of language.
What purpose, this process?

What kind of creator would look upon his creation
and ask "What does it mean?" instead of "What does it do?"
(it questions all our news).

Who can be frivolous? Who can be serious?
Commit to a decade of action, followed by a decade of reflection?
Cheer the departure of sleekness in a world of bloat?

Who doesn't proffer oeuvre as epitaph?

But we are sound,
not sand.

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