Escape Artists

Every so often life stops

and you face the naked truth

of your life

minus the din

of your hole-filling crutches

TERROR

Never stop escaping, little ape

The Incursive Righter

(dedicated to richard sanderell, 1946-2021)

Oosa has bloodied the world

since the battle of Tippecanoe

The Moro Crater Massacre showed

oosan can-do through and through

How many graves put on layaway

as Oosa played at Dien Bien Phu

Displacement, genocide

Do sterile words offend you too?

All those bloody dictators bolstered

just to make a buck or two...

Those trails of tears tendered

courtesy of you-know-who

Peoples of color for whom

three fifths (or less) would do

Generations of wimyn

whose brilliance the world never knew

The poverty that pervades oosan people

A reign of self-terror we must undo

But Oosa didn't get everything wrong

Sweet friend, Oosa also made you

at the open mic

I see a new poet
Is she looking at me?
We seem to connect
Her reading so raw
Damaged
Naked
But farewell flits fumbly...
She walks away alone
I watch myself
walking away
alone

Another poet sits next to me
Unshaven ankle below braless beauty
My heart tears at its cage
to pound on her lap
while my bereft body
blows away

A third poet
i impregnate!
(on the morrow)
(in my mind)

Of all the stunning poets
why do these three touch me most?
The answer not nearly
so obvious
as it
seems

"Work"

(A Deep History, from the Stone Age to the Age of Robots)

-by james suzman, 2020

This book doesn't crack the list of "16 books every humyn should read".

But maybe it should.

A sweeping study of homo sapiens' relationship to labor, from forager to hunter to farmer to factory to information age and beyond. The not-so-secret revelation is that we were much happier before our cleverness got cooking. Foragers work only two to three hours a day, have deeply satisfying community relationships, and no ulcers/suicide/income inequality.

The central thesis of suzman's work is that we need to return to some form of that reality, if we would save our sanity. For the thousands of years since the agricultural revolution, our lives have been a crucible of overwork (which is already an official cause of death in some countries, notably Japan). This may have been necessary when we didn't have enough resources for everyone, but around fifty years ago, our food-producing brilliance surpassed even our exponentially-expanding population. We now have enough food and resources for everyone.

More than enough.

It's time to stop pretending we don't.

Suzman's eye scans every "advancement" that changed how we work, from the rise of cities to the paradigm of scarcity to the birth of the service economy (and what that represents, a shift to an era when most workers don't produce anything tangible, because we don't NEED to - yes, i'm looking at you, you feckless financial advisers), to automation and the incipient age of robots.

He looks at the economists and philosophers who have commented on our progress, or predicted what's next.

He pulls it all together, with a plea to reclaim our lost humynity. A wonderful work.

delobotomeyes

The deepest reason why enlightened men
crave cuntward carnal couplings again and again
is horror
Horror at what's been done
to wimyn
on wimyn
in wimyn
through wimyn
Horror at what hands like ours have wrought
What all these male atrocities have taught
Unable to abandon the scene of the crime
we bleed beyond the bounds of time
Blindly seeking wombward ingress
we avert our spirits
Craving forgiveness
that can never come
Craving absolution
that can never come
Craving redemption
that like so many daughters
and sisters and mothers
will never ever ever
not never
cum

Born to Bree

This is where you were born to be

These arms encircling thee

These hormones inebriating thee

Hearts in healing harmony

Spirits in soaring synchrony

Our pantsless dance of progeny

Non-fractured, non-manufactured, at long last free

Romantic Wisdom for the Hetero Male

Flawed spawn of a fear-based tribe, that's you

Congenitally contrary to knowing you've no clue

Your XY genetic cupboard a paltry pup tent

beside her overflowing XX opulence

(science has taught - YOU are nature's afterthought)

Are hormonal upheavals just traps to find you fettered?

Sure, but she's stressed enough without you thinking you know better

Ovulating wimyn more attractive in face and voice?

Oh nature thou cheat, thou felonious format!

But wimyn have their best sex while pregnant

and we do NOT want to miss on that

If she looks your way, be amazed and grateful

you're invited

at all

"You're being irrational" utter nevermore

For nature tricks her, this we CANNOT ignore

You cannot encompass her needs and joy

She's a nerve-endings sex shop, you're a sex toy

Her brain an oxytocin avalanche, yours an oxy-trickle

If her mate-bonding beggars belief - be amazed and grateful

you're invited

at all

Nature addicts her to baby-batter brain-baths you trigger

Just be what she needs, her challenges are bigger

If she wants a threesome with a womyn do not assume the focus is YOU

If she wants two husbands don't whine that you are through

(your insufficiencies are a given)

Merciless lessons teach her men are selfish and stunted

Still she cannot forsake the love she's hunted

If she looks your way be unconditional and fearless

Fill her with seed, fill her with YES, she'll handle the rest

IN YOUR EYES LET HER SEE

unconditional, fear-free

She'll consecrate and create thee

Primal pulsings we were born to be

Protect and please her - how long is her call

Amazed and grateful

Amazed and grateful

Amazed and grateful

you're invited

at all

Howling

There's a dude standing in the square
Howling yowling yelping
Maybe he's talking to the air
Howling yowling yelping
Now he's just lying there
Howling yowling yelping
He doesn't care if you stare
Howling yowling yelping
His grievances he must air
Howling yowling yelping
Interrupt him i do not dare
Howling yowling yelping
The pains he cannot bear
Howling yowling yelping
He's hanging on by a hair
Howling yowling yelping
Blowing flowing going nowhere
Howling yowling yelping
Don't ask him what's fair
Howling yowling yelping
He sees you don't care
Howling yowling yelping

reunified hole

Being leery of love
is a sensible self-preservation
but come learn how to fly!
Being afraid of yourself
is a sane socialization
but all that is passing by
A prudent privation?
A needful negation?
A rational ruination?
A calculated castration!
A myopic mutation
A vicious vexation
A paralyzing prostration
A terrifying truncation
A frugal frustration
A stultifying sedation
A sober starvation
A suicidal stagnation
A de rigueur deflation
A debilitating damnation!
An aberrant ablation!!
A cataclysmic cunctation!!!
The era of man was an apocalyptic plan
Only self-annihilation was gained
It's time to fuck the way fucking was fucked
in the time when goddesses reigned

rebirth rocket

When men broke wimyn, they broke themselves
They splintered the supports under our shelves
They lost contact with half of life's voices
And lonely people make lousy choices
Conversation became pedantic preaching
with no proviso about male overreaching
We can't wave a wand, to make that okay
Wimyn must rediscover what they have to say
The process is faltering, this reboot so clumsy
Assertive femininity can ape daddy, not mumsy
And hollywood is a haven for stupid choices
Many movie heroines, just vulvas with male voices
So be patient on this rebirth rocket launching pad
But don't waste time, men fucked up pretty bad

drowning

Everyday by beauty ravaged
Everyday by horror savaged
If we would survive this ordeal
those who thrive must learn not to feel

brilliant weirdness

I can't claim any creative credit for this...it was filmed during downtime at a different music video shoot, and i only did what i was told, having little clue what the context was.

I still have little clue, but i like it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrM7Ow42HMY

lonely sea

How old will you be
when your best lover at last you see?
A tender nineteen?
A luminous sixty-three?

Maybe your thirties?
Feeling entitled and free?
Perhaps your fifties?
Ever so wise and witty?

How about your forties?
Drowning in a sea of lonely?
Perhaps your twenties?
Responding hormonally?

How will you react?
Will you be grateful and carefree?
Or might you try to mold them
into your personal mythology?

Will you impose your notions
of how they should think and be?
Will you declare your narrative
and expect them to agree?

Will you just let BE
whatever grows organically?
Or will you emulate everyone
forever flailing selfishly?

sex-starved

Why are you talking to me?
You're not someone i want to fuck
I DON'T SEE YOU

What?
You're intelligent, solicitous?
Provocative, non-duplicitous?
I told you
You're not someone i want to fuck
I DON'T SEE YOU

I'm sorry, i'm sure you're swell
but minus fuckability
y'all can go to hell

Am i truly this raw?
Am i really this crass?
I don't know, turn around
Show me a little ass

You're too religious? Too young?
Too pregnant? Too spoken for?
My dick doesn't think so
A cock is knocking at your door

But wait, come see
a sweet and platonic spree
I'm not so shallow
as i used to be!

I'm caring less and less
about fitness, age, and beauty
As a grownup humyn
i feel it is my duty

I'm caring less and less
about smarts and savoir faire
All wimyn need love
and i haven't done my share

Yes indeedy
just look at my maturity
Don't tell me desperation
is getting the best of me!

YOU i see, YOU i don't!
screams what's left
of my wasted brain
For deprivation
Deprivation
Deprivation done driven me
driven me
driven me
driven me
insane

Musings on a First-time Group Chat with Mostly Strangers

Bizarre...no reason for being here other than humyn connection?

The one person i know, i've never met in real life...

Mildly surprising that this isn't more painful

(given my mild depression's anti-social tendencies)

(and my propensity to think that anytime i'm not eating, fucking, or writing

i'm wasting my precious moment on this besotted space rock)

How do i talk without making myself the center of attention?

Hey now...the talk turns to sex

What could be more unsurprising...yet welcome?

Ooops, did i just say something flirtatious??

All my inner censors (that's censors with a "C") are going haywire!

Growing up MALE in this culture has taught me it's NEVER okay to flirt

For assuredly someone somehow, regardless of intent

will find my flirtation invasive or assaultive

Hey, bring back that naked artwork of semi-stranger #3!

I'm going to need some proof that boobie is YOU, blue

(down, you undersexed fool, down)

Just sing another song, make 'em laugh...

laughingest

She lost my number, she says
Are there accidents, say i?
Perhaps we're all just puppets
steered by subconscious eye

How to transcend our dysfunctional games?
We're too broken, neurotic, and needy
Can we possibly be the we i see?
Fearless, unconditional, non-greedy

Perhaps in this existential haze
we're forever buggered and blind
Perhaps i'm just flinging fantasies
against the prison of my mind...

Still i dream of stroking her back
until this life comes to an end
Her lastingest lover, her laughingest listener
and goddamn goofiest friend

fingers

There are five kinds of people in this world
What color is YOUR banner unfurled?
There are thumbs, who only want to squash
Making messes they do not clean or wash
There are pointers, the dreamers who live life unbought
Follow them or not, either path is fraught
Mocking middlers, anti-disestablishmentarian contrarians
Some look like clowns, some like librarians
And the fours, who disappear before your face
More and more each day in this inhumyn race
There are pinkies, fooles who want the world to laugh
They see the cup quarter-full, not half

But i'm just whipping this out of my behind
Don't hang it in the hall, don't build a steeple
For if humyns were the six-fingered kind
i would tell you there are SIX kinds of people!

ally

Fighting white patriarchy since a youth

Systemic biases unholy and uncouth

"Him/her" straightjackets i've striven to undo

(been railing about that since 1992)

It's nice to have company, that's a boon i've prized

But please don't call me "ally", it's a bummer being marginalized

masoschism

Dualism of mind and body
A tenuous, fatuous philosophy...
Yet the simplest technology
doth incite a natural schizophreny

Like the jarring experience of hearing your voice on tape
Sounding like NOBODY you know
Ugly and mawkish like a barbary ape
A sound you'd rather not show

The voice you've always heard
sounds pleasing to your ear
But that's an acoustic reality
no one else can hear

Or how our self-image is mirror-molded
(backwards in other words) like time slightly folded
Our photos to us look not quite right
but our friends see us with unadulterated sight

These harmless quirks magnified beyond cessation
Living in this culture of fear and alienation
Our looks hold the key to how we are treated
Whether we are loved, what respect we are ceded

Yet the corporeal is a cage
even for the gorgeous
The feeling of faking
The specter of loss
The fear that the world
will judge us by sight
and never see the REAL "you"
(or worse, that they might!)

Is this my body
Are these my knees?
Is that my fat??
Reintegrate me please!
How do i ask YOU to love me
when i lack that same skill?
How can i offer all of myself
when i'm an observer as well?

All this dualistic drivel
makes our self-image shrivel
Humynity's lost the art
of connecting by heart
Pure faith in oneself
leads to universal trust
To avoid self-destruction
reclaim that we must
For any stranger or sweetie truly comfy in their skin
can never help but let the whole world come in

tears actually

LOVE ACTUALLY
2003, directed by richard curtis

Update: I was mildly surprised to learn that some feminists hate this movie, and...you can't deny they're mostly right. The trope that posits wimyn are better seen and not heard, and that they exist to be "won" by a dynamic male? That critique has merit.

But i originally took this movie into my heart, not in spite of its occasional idiocy, but BECAUSE of that. It's a romantic comedy - doesn't one watch any rom-com with the presumption of idiocy? The fact that it's occasionally smart, wasn't the point either. I thought that in embracing a rom-com, any rom-com (something i'd almost never done), i would gain common ground with many wimyn. And perhaps thus increase my chances of getting laid.

An admittedly mercenary motivation...but underneath that was joy over the fact that this movie sometimes actually tells the truth about romance. Some people in this happy movie get CREAMED, with no reprieve, and i will always be grateful to the creators for that.

Plus...the most-vilified plotline, with the smitten best man showing love posters to his best friend's wife? That's one of my favorites - perhaps the only moment in cinematic history that speaks to my experience of the often stunningly-noble aspect of unrequited love.

Maybe you've never been there.

Is the film idiotic?

Of course.

Except when it's not. Can you say that about any other rom-com?

(original review)
I cried thrice in the past twenty-four hours, all while watching the movie LOVE ACTUALLY (or its special features). It's such a gentle miracle, crying, and i wonder whether i'll ever do so as much as i'd like. I've come a long way from my boys-don't-cry childhood, but still only cry once a month or less.
LOVE ACTUALLY, from the creators of NOTTING HILL and ABOUT A BOY, is wonderful. I've never seen a movie so happy and life-affirming you nearly forget that some characters don't find the love they need. We all muddle about, disappointing and hurting one another...and even when we get things right, there's a doomed longing to have love wrap us up and never leave.

Today's tears were while watching the deleted scenes, and a feature on the music (it's all wonderful, none more so than joni's new recording of "Both Sides Now"...the wisdom and sadness she precociously penned in her twenties are given heart-rending texture decades later). Not only should everyone add this movie to their holiday tradition, everyone should pester Universal to release a "deleted scenes/no-colin" version (um, that's colin the CHARACTER, not colin the actor). The cut scenes are often better than ones kept in. The commentary is delightful too.
Are there moments (and one entire colin plotline) that are forced and saccharine? Sure. But this movie also starkly reflects the pain we inflict on ourselves in the name of monogamy - jealousy, betrayal, denial...we put ourselves through agonizing spiritual contortions, trying to fit ourselves into a paradigm contrary to our nature. In the corners of this film, there might be tiny baby steps into a more enlightened future. Three plotlines (a spoiled rock star and his manager, a step-father and his child, and two adolescents) celebrate love itself, free of sexuality.
My tears remind me that this past year there have been two songs which have made me cry - paul simon's "Father and Daughter", and don henley's "Annabel". An insight into my lonely, grieving spirit...

I actually love...all of you. 

anthophilia

She sits her flower down

She sits on a bench

She noodles with her phone

My heart gives a wrench

There's a flower in running shorts!

I want to stand and cheer

You can find a flower in bloom

most any time of year

Burgundy flowers, pink flowers

beige, purple, red

Sigh, cry, happy til' i die

in a wildflower bed

Flowers fill my world

Such flower songs i've sung

Four billion flowers

and me with but one tongue!

musings on an online erotic poetry open mic

Blah blah words words...

Why so cynical? Some of these poems so so beautiful

Did i dream of skydiving dick-first into the host's home?

Did i hand-fuck myself for two hours without coming

waiting for permission from Ohio?

"Good boy". Thank you.

Do i avoid invoking the ones who really pushed my buttons?

The ones who might not be comfortable

with my blood pole pulsing for them

with dreams of penetration ovulation rainbow baby creation

Why do impractical, impossible impregnation fantasies

consume me?

Perhaps because if you're old enough and sensitive enough and MALE enough

your sexual history can seem a slaughtered sacrifice

Mortified by millennia of molestation and brutalization

by people who looked like YOU

So you've never leered, cat-called

or even really

flirted

But again...why so open mic cynical?

Because i always bristle at cozy or comfortable

That's how all poetry open mics hit me

Just pandering parrots

pressing literary buttons

to get the affirmation we all need

Avoiding anything truly fearless or fraught

Preach your progressive outrage at a Tea Party party!

But can i live up to my own standards?

Throughout the event

i resisted the temptation

to send a personal appreciation

to any poet who perked my libido

Were others less discreet?

If you could see a transcript

of the personally-sent event messages

wouldn't THAT be more entertaining

than the poems themselves?

And oh, how i rue

the day i learned what "pinning" can do

To enlarge any attendee without their knowing...

i don't want that temptation!

Like us all, i like to look at that i desire

Did i resist?

I did NOT

I pinned two performers not even performing

just to let my lust drink her in

Like a self-shamed addict with the DTs

i de-pinned within ten seconds

as though THAT made it less invasive

(while i dreamed of someone pinning me

on the sly)

That's the thing about objectification

Most of us love it

in the right context

But those shoals of shallowness

never far away

Why do i lust so faithfully

for the fit and fertile

Why are all others barely visible

to my broken, reptilian brain?

Next week: Is it possible to have a cock so anti-racist, it's racist?

beast

I am the wolf whispering your name

I am the beast your touch will tame

for a while...

muddy potatoes!

(a trainer gives a boxer a pep talk)

MICK: Yer gonna crap lightning! Yer gonna crap girders!!

ROCKY: Girders! Yeah!

MICK: Yer gonna crap water fountains!!

ROCKY: Yeah mick, yeah!

MICK: Yer gonna crap sidecars!!

ROCKY: I'm GONNA!

MICK: Yer gonna crap cotton candy!!

ROCKY: COTTON...hunh?

MICK: Yer gonna crap muddy potatoes!!

ROCKY: Why, mick, why?!

MICK: Yer gonna crap polar bears!!

ROCKY: That don't sound fun...

MICK: Yer gonna crap hamentashens!!

ROCKY: Yo mick, what's a...

MICK: Yer gonna crap duennas!!

ROCKY: Who?

MICK: Yer gonna crap parentheticals!!

ROCKY: How...

MICK: Yer gonna crap ephemera!!

ROCKY: Wha...

MICK: Yer gonna crap glass spiders!!

ROCKY: Yer really interested in my crap, mick...

MICK: Yer gonna crap jacqueline obradors!!

ROCKY: I think that's just one person...

MICK: Yer gonna crap dark matter!!

ROCKY: Is...is that real?

MICK: Yer gonna crap the null set!!

ROCKY: What does that mean..?

what's after the afterlife?

One of these days
science will prove
there IS an afterlife!
Won't we be relieved?

The devout will preen
Maybe even strut
(though half of them
never really believed)

The next year will find
folks chucking body and mind
Nothing will staunch the tide
of grateful suicide

But don't fall for the ruse!
I'm here to tell youse
it'll all be a billionaire plot
Our beaches are overrun
Our rivers gunked and done
And you can't find a parking spot
The tycoons are tired
The Earth is getting mired
in shit, piss, trash, and snot

So heaven will be a ploy
with a planet-purging goal
Government-gerrymandered
moron population control

And if you live for life after death
(despite not one shred of fact)
Bide your time and wait for
an act of GOD before you react!

dyadnauseum

The dyad is dying
Say goodbye, cheer the news
a cesspool cessation of codependent miscues

The dyad is dying
One lover, and no more?
My hormones are anguished, my mind doth snore!

The dyad is dying
TWO parents are all i get?
But this one's a bully, and that one's all wet!

The dyad is dying
Hear the cheers, behold the raves
Wimyn shall no more be sex & food slaves

Double standards, domestic abuse
Deadbeat dads? Don't be obtuse!
She does the work, he gets to play?
Isn't it time she had her say?
Isn't jealousy just so tiring?
Possessive exploitation at long last expiring

The dyad is dying
Good riddance, begone!
To polyer pastures we're moving on...

Lady V's "Not Only Acoustic" Show

 A concert i played this week. My set starts at the twelve-minute mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI-loyDWAQs

blue

I can break you down
I can make you cry
I can put you in a funk
so blue
I only have to ask
how much you own your life
and how much your life
owns you

caps

Why do the madcaps
get all the notoriety?
It doesn't feel fair
to our myriad millenery
Maybe you're a gladcap
Ever ready with a smile
Happy to give a hand
Uncomplaining all the while
Maybe you're a badcap
Dangerous and charming
Does anyone else here
find charming folk alarming?
Maybe you're a radcap
Never doing what you're told
Unpredictable, unrestrictable
Reckless and bold
Maybe you're a sadcap
Have you been "diagnosed"?
Though i find happy people
more unsettling than most
Maybe you're a fadcap
Following along
Let's get tattooed or pierced
while we sing a top 40 song
Maybe you're a hadcap
living in poverty
More and more each day
in this sea of inhumynity
Of course, if you're a madcap
there's no shame in that
In fact, in this nutty world
being mad is where it's at

insanity

I've looked into insanity's eyes
Insanity wants to fuck!
Insanity is a collapsing prison
with rioting inmates amok

Insanity destroys what it loves
and loves what it destroys
Insanity cannibalizes itself
We are insanity's toys

Illusive and elusive
I can't be any clearer
Insanity is why i'm afraid
to look into the mirror

Cuddles!

General-purpose cuddle

Electromagnetic cuddle

Thermometric cuddle

Petrol cuddle

Nail cuddle

Pipe cuddle

Smoke cuddle

Time cuddle

Improvised explosive cuddle

Cluster cuddle

Non-conventional cuddle

Pressure-cooker cuddle

Glide cuddle

Bouncing cuddle

Car cuddle

Barrel cuddle

Laser guided cuddle

Unguided cuddle

Flour cuddle

Stink cuddle

Massive Ordinance Air Blast cuddle

Smart cuddle

Dumb cuddle

Suicide cuddle

Molotov cuddle

Suitcase cuddle

Anti-personnel cuddle

Cobalt cuddle

Napalm cuddle

Bunker buster cuddle

Atomic cuddle

Hydrogen cuddle

Neutron cuddle

Mother of all cuddles

Dirty cuddle