Pretension VS. Ambition

(excerpted from A Resistance of Letters):

I find her seated in the pre-ordained bar, and say this place is a little loud. She agrees. We start to walk, find ourselves at the WTF Cafe. Funnily, I had worked here, long ago. For all of two weeks. The troll owner is not around—but over by the register I sense the residue of the prophetic homeless man, and I smirk. Rene asks what’s up. I ask her:

‘What is pretension?’

“Rhetorically?”

‘I want to hear your opinion.’

She leans back. Her asiatic eyes narrowing into bladed orbs. A couple weeks ago I took her out with Karl for drinks and he told her: “I want to fuck your mind.” She had got offended, and ranted about that later on, but in the moment she was quiet. She does have a voluptuous intellect, barely contained by her 90 pound South Seas frame. When she gets considerate, like now, I usually feel a tingling in my palms. She says:

“There’s the derogatory connotation, which muddies the meaning some. Like, you can be sincere and heart-felt, but if you have a developed aesthetic taste, then you will automatically be inventive with your expression of those emotions, and people might respond to that by calling you pretentious. Because they see your refinement as dishonesty—as a removal from “being real,” or as affectation. And so, by that yardstick, a poet is the epitome of pretension—his works being refined expressions of feeling.

“But that’s not real pretension. True pretension is acting as if you are something you are not, usually something better or higher or more ideal than yourself. And not only that, but you believe in that ideal self so much that you are out of touch, or deny, the lower or more “mundane” self. That is pretension: when your skill is disharmonious with the actualities expressed.

“Why do you ask?”

‘A homeless man once told me I would accomplish something… important. And I’ve always thought to believe him would be pretentious, but to doubt him would be foolish.’

“Well, I think I’m qualified to say you’ll be thought a fool regardless.”

‘Heh. You are, and right.’

“When chaos reigns upon the earth, maybe then I’ll have nothing to lose…”

Well, I absconded from posting yesterday’s recording here, due to its exceedingly personal and some might say explicit content. But the enterprising listener, I’m sure, will be able to hunt it down, because it’s out there.

Today’s the Seventh, and our recording is about shyness and loneliness and introversion.

Cave Hands

Every day I promise myself that I’ll try
Not to be so alone inside
My head which is where I prefer to be
And if the angels way up high
In their wide white sky
Decide to look down on me, then I
Hope that with their light
They’d send some peace

And I admit I’m dressed for the wrong solstice
Seasonal Dyslexia I suffer from
But that don’t explain
The tremble in my hands

And as the predator awaits with twitching tail
And salivating maw
Before the burrow of his scented prey
I fear the moment that I step outside
My patchwork slipshod shell that I’ll
Be set upon by internecine grief

And I admit most days I think nothing of
The outside world
I’m content to paint pictures of buffalo
Beside outlines of my hands

And as the wetted stone reveals its colors true
And yet when it dries
Appears to be a drab, unlustrous thing
I too abscond from drama’s wheel, and anger’s hold
That they wont magnify
The two or three realnesses in me

And I pray each night anonymously
That the Lord of Hosts won’t identify
This supplicant
Who hides his light
Between two tight-clasped hands

And at the End of Days
When Saints descend, and Chaos reigns
Upon the earth
Maybe then I’ll have nothing to lose
And I’ll step out from my cave, with what I’ve found
Held up high within my hands
And there declare the triumph of the peace

And I’ll search for you through the forests charred
And the harbors dried
And if I find you beneath a pile of
Broken toys
I’ll save you with these hands

“Where we can dance for an hour like a couple rainbows.”

MayDayChallenge, day Five: I return to my childish roots.

Hot potato

would you like a hot potato
before we leave for Chicago
sour cream and salt and pepper
loads of butter and some cheddar

in the oven we will bake it
in some foiled tin we’ll take it
to the plane across the city
over land and lake so pretty

and when we land in Chicago
we will unwrap our potato
in a park all filled with people
we will eat it until we go…

la, la, la, la
la, la-la, la…

& later on we’ll be feeling fine
we will slip through the crowd and take the red line
all the way north past Sheridan
to where the line turns purple up in Evanston
and then I’ll take us to a place that I know
where we can dance for an hour like a couple rainbows
and after that we’ll have a cup of tea
and find ourselves a couch and fall to sleep, Zzz, Zzz

“All they lack is experience of something other than themselves…”

Day Four of The Challenge: we get a wee bit protesty.

Secret Life

Black death creeps across the streets
Teen girls cover their mouths as the boybands sing
Eulogies to their prepackaged hells
All they lack is experience of something other than themselves

Every surface stained with perfection’s lie
Women starve themselves to fit the ever narrowing eye
And seeking to avoid their karmic pain
The insured pop pills to feel good and act all the same
(forget your prayers and rewire your brain)

Poor man’s cardboard reads: “SPARE SOME CHANGE”
Rich man’s lawn littered with politician’s names
And that eruption on Capitol Hill
Ain’t terrorism but expansion of the shareholder’s will
(All hail the Almighty Dollar Bill)

And those who’d spend their lives in protest
Often end up seeing only what the most detest
And if belief becomes a man’s definition
I’ll put my faith not in defiance, but rather invention

So hush my dear that none of this will touch you
Allow the bitter skin to open up upon the sweet fruit
And if you search beyond the evident Joys & Ills
I promise you, you will find
The secret life that fulfills.

“If you must use your cellphone, kindly use conversive tones.”

Day Two of The MayDayChallenge finds us visiting the baristas at The Raindrop Cafe, who got something to tell us:

• fair trade, shade grown
• fair trade shade grown
  roasted 3 blocks from your home
  shipped in sacks from africa
  hispanic lands and sumatra
  each cup is crafted expertly
  all our milk is hormone free
  or if you dont take to dairy
  we also offer milk from beans
• fair trade, shade grown
  & for your dog a biscuit bone
  our flavored syrups ultra pure
  evaporated cane sugar
  and if you’d like a pastry
  we buy ours from french bakeries
  except for these delicious pies
  they’re made by this one bearded guy
• fair trade, shade grown
  our cafe, your second home
  and if you must use your cell phone
  kindly use conversive tones
  we offer high speed internet
  (don’t use it for your bit torrent)
  yes we compost & recycle
  as marked on these receptacles
• fair trade, shade grown
  succulent, velvety foam
  we’ll top your late with a heart
  of if you like some abstract art
  we’re here before the sun is up
  especially to fill your cup
  and if you’d prefer the decaf
  we promise you we will not laugh…

This is a part of my Over The Top Non-Stop Stop Action Non-Toxic Sock Poppet Rock Opera.

“Like teeth spilled from the sky’s broken jaw…”

I’m challenging myself to record one song each day this month, as a part of The MayDayChallenge. Here’s number one:

• “Moldy Drywall”
• Where the nail hung into / the moldy drywall
  I hung the icon / of the blessed virgin
  Her tears bled my breast / of its self pity
  No more will I succumb
  To the want of my impotent heart
• I lay my back upon / the dusty hardwood
  My eyes found escape / through the curvéd skylight
  The lightning carved lines / betwixt the red clouds
  The earth drew the rain
  Like teeth from the sky’s broken jaw
• Sleep crept toward me from / the furthest corner
  I turned my head to view / the encroaching shadow
  My throat offered up / an Ave Mary
  As the silt of forgetfulness
  Swallowed whole my dissolute self
• In dreams madness swelled / with salty vengeance
  Rusted centipedes danced / on bleeding parchment
  I felt my lust and hate / gather hot beneath me
  My devils clamored
  While angels drained the pitch from my veins