Poem For OSU's Yearbook + 2

 I submitted the following poem to be included in OSU's yearbook. The theme of the call for submissions is "Faces of Reality." This poem will not be published in the yearbook, it is safe to say.

BTW: On June 3rd I will be reading some poems somewhere at OSU for The Grove, an online literary journal published by OSU undergraduate students. My jocular cat poem Thurber is in their new issue which you can find here.

On June 5th I will be performing with Marina Goldshteyn at Junctionview Studios during Creative Arts for Women's Sadie Hawkins show. I'll be composing a poem on the spot which will be projected onto the wall. While the poem is being written Marina will paint the words I am using as I use them - materializing the layers of the writing process that normally go unseen and creating a bright mess of a mural.

The poem for OSU,  LIKE "WHO NEEDS IT?", is after "The Jump" as is two more.


LIKE "WHO NEEDS IT?"

Reality:
You know,
It seems "Real”
As if,
If anything were to be real,
By default,
"Reality" would be.

If "unreal" is "Real"
(as it almost certainly is,
when I say things I think about life
people all seem certain in replying "That's just not realistic.")
That seems
To "prove"
That, like,
Its opposite is real too. By necessity or something.

If "real" is Real
(per le counterintuitive,
dualistic logic)
Then, like, we should
Probs take it serious:
Like "Peace in the Middle East."
And/or "Free Tibet."

But,
If you do accept reality’s Realness,
And you are walking down
High Street
All, "Senior Crawl"
And three very large,
Very white men
Shriek
                             "O H!"
At you,
Like inches from your
“Just-trying-to-get-some-pizza” face,
Then the idea of "Real"
Becomes more of a burden
Than a mitigating solace or some
Mooring to grasp for
Whilst cast adrift in the vertiginous static
Of subjective thought
And self-obsessed pleasure.

Subjective thought
And pleasure, 
You know, like
Where shrieking
                            "O H!"
Isn't an impulse,
And “O H!” isn't
A "sports" team or
A political delineation or
A geographical distinction or
An inherited misconception of “self” and “place”.

Like – maybe - we should "rethink" reality.

Like, "Who needs it?"

Like, “What have you done for me lately?”

Like, “Oh God, not this again."


Like, "I got it the first time, man."


SELECTED CONTENTS OF THE DUMPSTER


1. Me
2. You




Ode to Lemonade and Gin; the Chicago Spring + I Need All the Stroopwafels (A.SAP).

When we dance, we dance
a dance of windmills,

stationary and flailing,
we "produce that energy."

Floods and tulips and still lifes,
                                                   
I get Our brevity.