Land of No
No is normal. No is the starting line. No is default.
Readers,
I’ve taken my poetry collection, UNFU CKTHE WORLD, off of Amazon. Yes, no one cares, and that’s fine. And why would anyone support that cursed company or its soulless owner anyway? The book has been out of contract for a while, and the publisher said they leave them on Amazon at a rock bottom price so authors can order more books.
It’s time to move on.
The book is half-baked, at best. I had no mentors or teachers. Virtually no editing support or advice. And let’s face it, poetry is the “jazz” of literature. Which is funny because my parents were jazz musicians. They met and played music together. They did the sex. I’m literally a consequence of jazz.
If I ever write a memoir, “A Consequence of Jazz” would make a great title.
Poetry is my primordial goo. It’s also a refuge. When the heart rules (which is often), when reason flails and fails, when prose gives up the ghost, I return home.
As the world burns in cruel absurdity, what can I do but sing?
—C
(This poem is from UNFU CKTHE WORLD. It has been edited from the published version.)
Land of No
In a society of no, it is easy to forget yourself.
No is normal. No is the starting line. No is default.
After you hear no enough, it sinks in. No is expected.
Of course no. Obviously no.
No is for not enough. No is for too much. No is damnation.
Noes are balloons lost to the great blue. High thoughts that popped. Joys we never knew.
Curses that howl through forests of big t’s. Bullseyes for machine gun fire little t’s.
They ricochet and echo. Dam(n) life’s flow.
This is why we don’t take risks often, or ever at all. Better to think small. Be a rag doll. Softer, the inevitable fall.
Our designs aren’t impossible, they are unpossible. And this poses reluctant quandaries:
Why are the dreamers always the stranger, ill-fitting? Without belonging?
Can the judged be held in hearts? Whole, or only in parts?
Are we constantly masquerading or capable of determinate trajectories? Mastery?
Where is this misery’s beginning? Does it have an ending? Can we find mending?
Because in this world, yes is for the worthy. Yes is for the chosen. Yes is for the gifted, yes is for the exceptional, yes is for the favored, yes is for the agreeable, yes is for the moldable.
Yes is special. Yes is scarce. Yes can only hold a few in its hands. Yes is found only at the right place, at the right time—possessed by a certain other of a certain frame of mind.
This yes set conditions, expects dividends.
But what if yes was free?
What if we were told yes from birth? What if yes was the song the world sang?
Who would we be?