Shun the ostensible gesture, flattered by
young actors paid to take a healthy swig; they're
digging for the world to feel right by flopping it backwards,
slopping it sideways; it lures the id like an impaled anchovy
seduces the halibut, wriggling on a rusty, abused hook.

angles.
bones.
angles.
bones.
angles.
bones.
angles.
bones.
angles.
bones.
beauty.
angles.
bones.
angles.
bones.
angles.
bones.
beauty.
beauty.
angles.
bones?
bones?
beauty.
bones?
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
bueayt.
beauty
bueaty
beaueu
beaueee
bueatueu
bueayuyertu
buearueituwoer
beaorfuijoiewjfgia;jdfioawe
beaweoriuapwoeitus;lkdj;slkdjfoawierj

Tempted by the grapevines,
and the juices they offer,
I slap myself into piece and remember the order:
THE ORDER OF ESTEEM
to do what is written in my quiery--
NO LEAKING LIKE THE VINES!
No seeping into mud;
no STOPPING and dropping.

Conscience

Two pidgeons slurred in pinwheels,
churned their voices into bubbling chyme
against the inviting and fuzzy coat of morning's light;
they spieled on different reels,
spewed wars of illiterate songs,
rampant at the threat of the afternoon's deathly heat.
They dropped music notes onto the concrete,
which broke in halves, wholes, and quarters,
and debated the duet they thought to be innate.
And, crusted by the dawn, flapped on, and on, and on.

Insert: prose digression

I don't feel like myself today; a skin shedding was due yesterday at 4 and I was 15 minutes late for my appointment. Everybody else had already gotten their skins shed, waxed, polished, refurbished and glistered up for a clean new countenance. A fresh countenance, I suppose you can say. And I missed that chance--a chance to keep up with the trends and the latest ensembles that mean so much today and mean so little tomorrow. No, the opportunity wasn't so much a necessity to my being. Not so much as others beg the need for a fix--this fix, to keep up with life in the pace of change: styles, fashions, language, medication, personalities, music.

I feel like I deliberately forced an immunity to these "re-creations". A breach to the system. Yet, I still feel a tinge of morose from an unforeseen cause. Sometimes I wonder if I should acquiesce to the current and pick up a new face. Perhaps then I will feel more entertained and "inside" with the others. I wonder that.

Or perhaps I am pensive because I cannot relate to the "skin shedders". And, because of that, I am cloistered in my bubble of "immunity to the system". The ability to forego the change.

And sometimes, I just wonder about that.