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