The long arm of the law
Reaches from the body of government
To squeeze the heart of the people
Gaggling atop the belly of the beast

While the head of the church
Resting on the shoulders of its fathers
Balks at the hand of creation
That knocks madly at the treasured chest

For the blood of the innocent
Trickles through veins of ore
That fail to nourish the organization
That clutches for life on the floor

Consider me oddly encumbered
Goddily slumbered
Vastly outnumbered by ghastly pontoons
Shot for the moons, and falling up short
Calling for loons, and stalling for sport
All for the thwarting of wars I don’t fight
For the sake of supporting the chance that I might

People tell me I’m self-centered, and I don’t know what to do about that.
Care about others.
I do, I think they’re great.
Care about them more than you.
What good would I be doing for my own purpose by ignoring my own desires?
And that’s what makes you self-centered.
Seems like one has to be…
Why?
Because when I’m centered, that’s when I’m most capable.
Capable of what?
Doing everything better.
Then why not get better at caring about others?
I can.
Then do it.
I do.
Then why do they think you’re self-centered?
They must see how empowered I am.
As in…
Like a sun.
So, they’re like planets?
Kind of… Sometimes, I guess.
Little dominating, no?
Not always, it changes, sometimes I’m smaller.
So, it’s a competition…
Just trying my best at life.
What if someone else’s best is better?
All I can worry about is my own.
Is it something that actually worries you?
Uhh… sometimes, sure.
Why?
Feels like it’s off track.
From what?
Where I want it.
Are you really in charge of where it goes?
With every action I make.
Really?
Seems that way.
Then what actions work best?
At what?
Putting your life back on track.
I guess those that fulfill my needs.
Being?
Happiness, accomplishment, appreciation, I dunno, love.
How do you get them?
I dunno… by giving them?
To who?
Others.
Do you?
Huh?
Do you give those things to others?
No, I guess not.
Why?
…because I only think about myself.
But the best way to help yourself–
Is to give others what I wanna receive.
Sounds like a pretty selfish thing to do.
Then I should be good at it.
They might stop calling you self-centered…
So?
So, what happens if they start calling you selfless?
I tell them why they’re stupid.
They might not take kindly.
Doesn’t matter, I’m self-centered.
Is that caring about others?
Dammit.
Good try though…
We finished here?
Probably never.
Can I at least take a burrito break?
Will you share it?
You’re just a disembodied voice in my head…
I still like burritos.
Fine, I’ll share it.
See? Progress already.
You’re kind of a dick.
A helpful dick.
Still a dick.
You’re welcome.

The question lingers
Pointing its poky finger
Into the mushy reduction of my grumbled mind

Bantering like some mad child
Circling on his tricycle
Taunting over and over

Filling me with the swirling frenzy
Of darting fish all screaming together

Calling, begging, raging, poking
In some incomprehensible multi-dimensional
Tetrahedron of pointed vernacular
Jabbing its obsessive spikes
Like anchors into my mind

Exploding with the rage of confinement
Shrieking into empty halls of glassware
Threatening to shatter the world

Screaming “WHY!?” as creatures tremble
“WHY!?” as canyons crumble
“WHY!?” As tectonic plates devastate rural townships
In horror and desperate haste
“WHY!?” For the sweet love of flogging donkeys
Can’t I remember what I was going on about?

It deepens the dreams
And the revelry scenes
of pure constellation
With taut laser beams

That got through the oddery of phosphorous looms
And the utter fodder-shoddery godwottery dunes

Cauterizing eyesing icing
Every thoughtery day
Oughta boughta lotta, gotta nada
Focus, they say

Listen you slumbergutting, numbertutting
Lumber-cutting thundermutt
Get your skiddle-doddled fiddlemanner
Of widdlegrained scattermasting
Out that riddle-stuttered, bitternutter, buttermiddle door!

Gutter your sniddles
Diddle your fudders
Shuttle your smitters
And witter your cuddles

And for the swee-dankle scatterbats
Of splatterhat’s chorus!

Stop changing the words in my bloody thesaurus

You are a member of the Universal Association of Paradigm Activators.

You were sent here on a strict and definitive mission to do whatever the hell you feel like.

You will be overseen in these actions by a council of supervision dedicated to absolute success; prodding you every step of the way to complete whatever it is you are arbitrarily doing at the time.

They will punish you severely
if you ask them to.

They will restrict your god-given liberties in the pursuit of a goal
if you so design.

You will be judged intricately for every action in your lifetime
if you want.

There is NO ESCAPE from the legislative requirements of this mission, be they of absolute consequence or none at all.

You have no choice in the matter but to go in the direction that you are in the process of going
And should you change that direction…

So!
In summation, you are to report here every day!
You are to do stuff. The End.

And we don’t wanna hear no guff about it.
Lest ye be guffing that guff out your own guffing guffer
You understand? Doesn’t matter.
Good job.

High upon the hills of Lion’s Landing
Billowed with the winds of Aronlee
Clad in olive gold that day lay standing
The heaving spectre hulk of Alan B.

The grip lay worn upon his haggard sceptre
The kingdom lay in ruins at his feet
The halls shall now forever reek the nectar
Beswelled by him as well his creature Pete

Oh hail the mighty righteous kingdom razer!
Regale in soaring song and tankard wines!
Beware his magic sword of Jedi laser!
And his heaven-sent Ford Taurus of divines!

So cast aside your tales of golden idols
Hold high your iPod Nano of the Free!
Forsake your worthless family, home and titles
For the sultan saviour king of Aronlee

We have this idea in modern poetry
That it shouldn’t rhyme.
That if you’re rhyming
You’re doing it wrong
And quite frankly, you should really stop.

And I quite sincerely agree.
Poetry’s raw~

It’s not like a song
Where you’re humming along
And the rhyming’s the timing that carries it on

We don’t need that
Poetry isn’t some fairy-tale conjecture like music is
It’s real
It’s from the heart
Not some tiddlywink fancy-grammar
Meant to twiddle your dew-gumbits

It’s powerful flowing waves
Crushed from the ocean of humanity
Meant to hush our very souls
With the utter calamity of this endless
Cosmos spinning about us!

I mean how could a poet, in all seriousness
Hope to touch on the majesty of these whirlwinding
Roars of bliss and tragedy that paint
Great swathing splashes of triumph and atrophy
On the bone-marrow canvass of our brittle lives,
When they’re caught up in such juvenile flourishes?

You simply can’t summon or possibly capture
The misery, the fortitude, the cunning, the rapture
Of this divine random babble of beauty and sorrow
In duty of chasing a misty tomorrow
With only what graces the heavens may grant! ~

If you’re caught up in rhyming
I’m sorry, you can’t.

My name is Alfonso!
The native garbanzo
Confused, and considered obscene
For some people pick
To call me a chick
Since I pea everywhere that I bean