1) Loaded Dice and Poisoned Candy
Hardly even know it’s there
most of the time...
after all, we can be a (somewhat)
fundamentally oblivious species:
whether posited, serenely, in proper lotus position
in the middle of some shimmeringly pristine
mountaintop scenario or deeply steeped
in some sweaty, chaotic configuration of love,
or (just as likely), broke down
on the side of the highway,
I-35 let’s say, just south of Topeka, Kansas
(with five pallets of National Enquirers,
bearing the tear-streaked face of Miley Cyrus,
that has GOT to get through):
a weathered cargo ship
run aground under a brutal, relentless sun,
one-o-one in the shade
and a beer can rolling along all of a sudden
like a tumbleweed in an old cowboy movie,
(and now a dog barking off in the distance,
as if on cue).
So, we are allowed, now and then,
an absolution, of sorts,
from our inherent obligation
to fundamental attentiveness
to most of the obvious
and at least some of the finer points
of the subtext, metatext and copious footnotes
to the post, post-modernist novel of Life.
But, still it hovers and circles,
always lurking just out of the corner of the eye,
waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike,
doling out fate and fortune,
good, bad and indifferent, alike,
the free-floating nucleus
of the all-encompassing,
all-permeating physics of context,
the fluid matrical mechanica
of how things really are,
the constantly shifting locus
of the very shit that happens to us,
again and again and again
in sloppy viscous loops...
The moment ultimately coming to a point,
like the point of a big red arrow
on the Metaphysical Highway
Rest Stop Map Of Life,
like the finger of God pointing,
just a little too accusingly,
at you (and you and you)
as if to say
YOU ARE HERE
(and here you are)!
Hell,
everything else
is extenuating circumstances
and low-grade
accommodation,
loaded dice and poisoned candy.
2) Ironic, Aint It?
that,
while constantly
being re-reminded
by the representatives
of forces
(presumably)
larger than ourselves,
from time to time
to time, of one’s (seemingly
pre-ordained and inescapable)
holding place
in whatever
grand (or even less than
grand) schemata of peoples /
places / things
you happen to currently find yourself
steeped in,
is indeed sobering,
it also,
(maybe not-so) oddly enough,
in turn, makes the notion
of pulling several monster
rippers off a bong
made from a google-eyed
porcelain bunny and
sipping on a quadruple
Americano
while flipping
back and forth between
a (sur)reality show about
Amish gangsters and
bat-shit religious programming
on the local access channel,
sound like just as good
a way as any
to start the day.
3) They Say A Lot, Don’t They?
They say fools look for wisdom
stamped on candy Valentine hearts
and go for long strolls
where angels bury their dead.
They say the only difference
between an angel and a demon
is the mood you catch them in.
They say rude awakenings
come to those who nod off
waiting for phones to ring.
They say women who run with wolves
often get bit on the butt.
They say men who somehow manage
to mount a tiger will only begin to fathom
the true depth of their foolishness
when they have to take a leak.
They say those who sleep under bridges
become birds in their dreams.
They say a bird in the frying pan
is worth more than big talk
from a burning bush.
They say God may not play at dice
but He? / She? / It? has been rumored
to give the old cosmic roulette wheel a spin
from time to time.
They say where God builds a megachurch
the Devil builds a fireworks / BBQ / porn emporium.
They say conspiracy is the only true religion
(in which all other religions merely play
their assigned roles).
They say he who seeks vengeance
makes two grave mistakes.
They say desires never satisfied,
ambitions thwarted, needs never met
can cause the blood to cool and the soul
to pool and blacken like grease in a trap.
They say money may be
the root of all evil
but pussy is the fruit.
They say a lot, don’t they?
They certainly do.
They certainly do.
Jason Ryberg is the author of twelve books of poetry,
six screenplays, a few short stories, a box full of folders,
notebooks and scraps of paper that could one day be
(loosely) construed as a novel, and, a couple of angry
letters to various magazine and newspaper editors.
He is currently an artist-in-residence at both
The Prospero Institute of Disquieted P/o/e/t/i/c/s
and the Osage Arts Community, and is an editor
and designer at Spartan Books. His latest collections of poems
are Zeus-X-Mechanica (Spartan Press, 2017)
and A Secret History of the Nighttime World (39 West Press, 2017).
He lives part-time in Kansas City with a rooster named Little Red
and a billygoat named Giuseppe and part-time somewhere
in the Ozarks, near the Gasconade River, where there are also
many strange and wonderful woodland critters.