I open with some psuedo-religious imagery designed to ground whatever it is I say,
in popular culture so old the original myths predate the language I am speaking of them in.
I’m stealing emotional credibility from your spirituality,
and you watch, I’m gonna get a standing ovation for it,
for coming into your home, stealing your silver, and selling it back to you at a discount.
Sit down and listen up, folks,
I’m reading you a god-damned poem.
And you’re maybe sitting there thinking about how harsh I’m being,
but the things is,
but the thing is,
but the things is (I’m adding repetition for suspense)
(and release:) I only ever criticize myself in these words,
and I try, hard, to give you enough to understand that this is self-mutilation,
rather than unauthorized flagellation of some random poet I found dragging their words through the sludge,
only for me to come along and snatch those words and twist them into dead-eyed ridicule,
with vacant eyes and lolling tongue dripping acid on each syllable as they slip from between my teeth.
Rather this is me calling me out on my shit,
equal to equal, judge, jury, defendant, accuser, witness, court-room reporter all rolled up in careful diction and dead-on graphomanic dictation.
and sometimes, sometimes I just use words cause they sound right,
with that pitter pat splat fire rapid titter ‘tween plosives for that drum roll tongue s-li–de.
And then comes the chorus where I re-iterate that central idea:
even free-form has structure, subconscious or otherwise.
free-standing non-chronological flash-back/
emotional hook/
new thought to keep interest/
bold-faced manipulation.
Return.
shit I wrote literally
for balancing positive and
negative space.
and watch those fucking capitols,
Me ‘n me ‘n i ‘n I are all these different codified terms,
recalls to the poem you’ve never read with the line “from the i to the I”,
creating a binary relationship between Complete and Autonomous,
or incomplete and dependent.
and this is the part where if I were readings I’d get deathly quite,
after the rise to roar,
I’ll be dead serious and meet as many eyes as I can,
saying painful things that I know push my own emotions,
because it makes you uncomfortable,
and I create emotional resonance with the content by inspiring physical discomfort in you.
I don’t make fun of you because I don’t have to.
By making this about me, while leaving out most individualizing details,
I leave enough room for you to worm into my self-monologue,
substituting my voice for your subconscious.
I have credibility from my forced connection with something we all share,
because I took an idea you have to have at least heard of to live where you live,
and tied myself to it like some leech.
I’ve used your emotions to get you to start displaying sympathy
used a physical trick to trigger the emotional reaction I want you to have,
used it trick your brain into displaying empathy, making you feel what I feel,
and once we’re parallel, it’s easier to lead.
“probably song lyrics,
but since they’re uncredited…“
(more emotional trickery.)
And as I work my way up to this swell, you’re with me,
my diaphragm tensing to fill the space as I’ve learned time and time again,
because it’s a long held joke that louder is truer,
because theirs a bit of true to it as you pay closer attention at the changed dynamics.
and here we whisper again,
for the same reasons dubstep is appealing.
And then comes the chorus where I re-iterate that central idea:
poetry is manipulation that you willfully give yourself over to.
And you say I’ve got some rambling in my words,
and I can see that, what with my great plains imagery,
my Yosemite desire of grandeur, my salt-snatched drawl,
that whiskey kick ‘n cigarette snuff.
That drum-beat conjunction repetition,
‘n I grew up with them same western heroes,
‘n since I know now how full of shit they were,
I ain’t got a problem with comparisons.
because the reality of all this is a self-understanding of a very flawed person,
and making the best of that to remind that it ain’t, ain’t always, ain’t always what it seems.
I am the chittering mad voices that leak from self-doubt.
Disconnected, disassociated, made the other to better defend,
but darlin’, but love, I know, I know, I know how best to get back in,
because I never left.
because, because, because,
this was never about you.
for all the form I frame it with,
this is self-gratification that’s stopped being gratifying,
‘n gradually turned into a form of self-analysis.
In the end,
I’ve got cowboy boots ‘n stirrups ‘n “dirt road rambles”
’cause that’s the heroes I want to be,
and these words ain’t nothin’ but dress-up darlin’
dressin’ up to look nice:
for you.
