The Plea

"I've never personally criticized anyone else's music, but I know that the public's real problem is not the music I make but the perception that I play simple music for money only and for the notoriety and to increase my popularity." - Kenny G

Resignation

—

I'm not saying

I want you

to bow and worship me,

as the king of prose,

poetic verse

and iconoclastic gymnastics

I'm just saying

I want you

to think of me

when you go to sleep

and when you wake up.

fully refreshed,

at dawn

spit

—

/Can we just take a moment to fully appreciate the greatness of Slint - Brian McMahan, David Pajo, Britt Walford, Todd Brashear and Ethan...Ethan Buckler\

—

Reformation

—

venom

Remember me

and the words I weave,

the words and phrases

I weave so deftly

for all to see,

please remember me

when you're

walking the dog,

working the slog,

the rat race,

the dot.com,

the start-up,

the retiree lifestyle

not for a solitary moment

but a mark

a trace that lingers

Give pause and reflection

to the dissertation

in rhythmical fashion

that you read

from my book

or the screen

that's my dream,

that's my desire,

that your love

for my skills

and my talent

won't whither,

die or just tire

distasteful

—

Restoration

—

—

I mean if you want to hold me under a bright white light and run through my words with a fine tooth comb and microscope, be my guest. Catch the double entendre, wonky rhythms, slant rhymes, and grammar-fricasseed crimes. Keep my words in your notebook, your journal, as the latest fad, the already has been, poet terrible (in your best French accent), optimum et pessimum (in your best Italian/Roman accent) most have never seen.

I'm not

saying I'm greatest, no

Dickinson or Poe,

not saying I'm

worst, no

Koontz or Wordsworth.

A happy happy beatus medium, far from a bestseller, more a best teller of truth, fact, fiction and lies, complicated in creation and demise, leading you down the path to your doom or up the stairway to a lexicon nirvana—

Dancing the fine line between criminally underappreciated, underrated, like Wire or bloody Can.

I can can can Galop infernal kick the can of mediocrity from the hand of the largest to the face of the grimiest. spit the words you don't want to hear, but the very words you need.

The ones that make you think, screw your face up and grimace, scratch your chin after your arse. miserabilist, surrealist, word genie, I'll give you three wishes for free, and one of them my 5 penny fee, my Old Man Jenkins tailor made tee, and a newly planted tree. I had a wish, I had a dream, that my wish, my dream was for something subpar, normal, with this pen in my hand, or laptop on my...

thick thighs, but I can't see past

the shiny shiny and the big name publishing contract I'll probably never get, the props I'll never receive, the multi-dollar advance that will give me a reprieve to redraw my battle plans and stick the landing for the sophomore coming.

mark these words, remember the name, one you will whisper when sitting in class or your deadened job, while climbing the corporate ladder in tights, or buff the bender of your car (what's a bender, I'm a brit)… food waste

As I was saying, I'm not smoothest, not always best with my words, but in my head, I'm the pig in the pen that's just realised it's way past ten and time for tea with Napoleon, the boys and me, as we rule the underclasses, as you sit on your arses, wondering how he ever came to be, this...he is gone and we are left in the dust of his grandeur.

Remember—

there's no good and bad,

just bad and worse,

and trust me, I know

where I sit, with a curse, sebum nonsense

...in a hearse...

—

no wait, that seems to much.

Let's leave it

at curse.

leave it at curse.

—

—

leave it

at curse.

—

Fin

*

Thanks for reading!

Author's Notes: Thematic and actual companion piece to Venit Vidit Vicit and Paint Me!

Now the references for that piece are out the way, here are some other pieces you might enjoy: