Go pace yourself

Two hands
for beginners,
my mother would always say without
knowing what she really meant.
She quoted Nietzsche with
the same naivete.

I told my daughter about books
on records, that bong when you should
turn the page. She liked my retelling
of Peter and the Wolf
best.

I watched her start off,
as passionate as possible,
with everything at her fingertips,
only to try to finish
like me, too hurriedly.

I figure
-Slow Down-
is good advice
for any age.

In the beginning
I heard myself say,
two hands for beginners,
knowing that holding steady
requires much practice.

We make it look
too easy.
When using both hands
we should say something
about the strength
required.



Painting by William Adolphe Bouguerau, c. 1899 in Israel Museum [Public domain].

Hot thick air

One cannot, or should not
argue with Stupid.

Or is that a bad word-too-

the argument proceeds as follows:

Mountains may-be moved one grain at a time,

Rocks don’t roll,

alone, but may-be take a tumble

for a slide.

Downhill,

they had brain damage, self-induced,

how to be mad from up here?
It is supposed to be sad, but they are not
missing
what they never had. 

They can no longer help themselves

along. I wish I could, sometimes

I am livid with stupidity,

it makes me mad.

Before I recall-I predict.

It was made-up
of all short-term memories,

cluster-plucked

for the littlest of minds

for the tiniest of bodies,

for the biggest disappointment

of intellectual potential or IP,

as in A.I., a.k.a. Artificially Inherited traits.

I’ll take it from here-

I have built my own family, twisted the DNA

around counter-wise.
A mutation is the adaptation of one

alone.

 “The decrease in instincts which are hostile and arouse mistrust—and that is all our ‘progress’ amounts to—represents but one of the consequences attending the general decrease in vitality: it requires a hundred times more trouble and caution to make so conditional and late an existence prevail. Hence each helps the other; hence everyone is to a certain extent sick, and everyone is a nurse for the sick. And that is called ‘virtue.’ Among men who still knew life differently—fuller, more squandering, more overflowing—it would have been called by another name: ‘cowardice’ perhaps, ‘wretchedness,’ ‘old ladies’ morality.'”

— Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

Painting Master of the Female Half-Lengths, c. 16th century in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Concerning: Generic Water

In 1986,
we could drink out of the tap

and it was considered barbaric

               (well water as it was)

but it was so good.

That was there, this is now

that everyone drinks in disposable 

pervasive clear canteens.

In 2018,
there was mass poisoning by the sterilizing-

worst case scenario-better safe than sorry so 

saturated with leachating preservatives 

used as a precaution.

Inevitably,

pieces dissolved, as they tend to do

(entropy) 

         in manufactured self-containment-

well, people and plastics became one,

bonded.

In the eighties,

I remember walking home, wading in the creek.

My musty Vans tied by their laces to my backpack strap

after school, Genius, I thought, 

bottled water, readymades, ant farms, crystal gardens,

pet rocks, canned air, and jarred fireflies sealed with a kiss.

I ingest the red woods and taste bliss.

In 1978,
at the grocery store,

the generic brand of anything 

was white or yellow, the basic packaging.

It was good enough, cheaper even

to not say everything.

Also, 

my mother told me I always wanted a toy

and I would toddle up to strange men,
                      (also grocery shopping) 

and ask them if they were my daddy.

Today,
I still return from the grocery store without
everything I need.

My kids asked about the Mexican men posted up

outside Home Depot(s), 

I told them about outside labor

          (fathers on back-order) and say

if Toy’s R Us had this (for lazy parents),

they would still be in business.

Nine-tenths of the time,

poverty and water obey the laws
of thermodynamics.
Both are
Being and Event. 

In 2018,
I am grateful for everything that I never had.

She oft-quoted Nietzsche with knowing

where it came from or

it made me stronger.

I cannot see everything my body does for me, thankfully.

It would be terribly distracting to have transparent packaging,

I believe this would make everyone less appealing.

In 1989, 

I can clearly see my naked feet under the flowing water

of the Little Bear Creek,

rippled sun rolls over the enlarged mole
atop my left foot,

my soles are both slippery, I notice

how the liquid moves in a cool hurry

                 but only I move the stones.

Yesterday

I thought of all the Springs passed,

and my own mothering nearer to

reaching the sea, it has dawned on me
finally,

we are all temporarily employed

Here 

with our shoes, our guns, our molded plastics,

plain packaging

we call watertight-

forgetting this too

is subject to corrosion. 

Artwork: Лесной ручей. Весной. 1890, холст, масло, 75х56 Forest creek. Spring. 1890 {{Creator:Grigorij Grigorjewitsch Mjassojedow}} {{PD-art}} From http://lj.rossia.org/users/john_petrov/96740.html

Thus Spake a Prince of Prussia

Has there ever been a person who lived between

then and now, not now and then?

Dreams do this to us.

Details and physics, waves and sand, 

snow and rainbows, 

the observable highs and the lows,

It was as though fine tuning each note

explains why we dance to the song.

Transportation becomes the Philosophers Steam,

traing thoughts by voice and vapors,

and such as smoking papers

and burnt nerves 

on track. 

There is a picture of Nietzsche,

reclined with his feet on an ottoman,

his hands clutch the lapel of his wool coat

sheepishly his lower lip grazes out in view.

The smile lines say libertine and it is sad,

not needing, for want thereof

last laugh and half mast and full bore.

Mercurial man with his playmates, pretty

little penultimate Plutonians 

falling in and out of love like Spring.

He and she circumvent any obstacles 

and asteroids 

some times in line. 

Delirium, therein they concluded,

the horse, of course, and inherent

potency of white Prague.

What does not kill you did not care 

deeply enough to listen to the voices

and translate gagged passions

into fetters.

With a little apathy,

all complaints have been quelled.

This leaves room to travel.

Ape & essence, Super man, good beyond evil,

the power to will, the tragedy of birth, 

where peacocks, buffaloes and Ecce Homos roam,

these were titles of poems

I believe in ideas and insomnia never sounded

more prophetic.

The past princes would say, we continue to be

pathetic plebes

living now and then, dwelling in then and

now manual means melancholy,

machines write programs in prose

and sign 

every thing, Eternally,

Dionysus. 

Image credit:

en: Friedrich Nietzsche. Photograph from the series „Der kranke Nietzsche“ ("The ill Nietzsche") by Hans Olde, between June and August 1899. Original at Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv Weimar, signature GSA 101/37.

Scan of a reprint in Benders/Oettermann (ed.): Friedrich Nietzsche - Chronik in Bildern und Texten, Hanser / dtv 2000, p. 806/7