I have nothing to say. Sure, if I were more intelligent and better looking, I might have thoughts to share.
But, absent even a hint of brilliance or a glancing blow of handsomeness, my words are valueless. They don’t even belong on the screen, much less on a page that might one day find its way into a book that almost certainly would be burned for its white-hot irrelevance. So I’ll slink away from the fringes of the far edges of the dimming limelight. And I’ll take my ideas and my assertions with me. I’ll crawl back under the covers that hide me from the glaring spotlight. That spotlight was not meant to inflict fame on me. It was intended only to bathe me in harsh heat that sucks the liquid from the milk of human kindness, leaving only a hard skin of rancid, sharp-edged protein, like burned egg white, cooked to the surface of a porous skillet.
“That’s what’s left of him. A crisp scrap of truculent stench so foul it is visible in even dim light and darkness.”
Some mornings, only the ugliest phrases fit the vagaries of my moods as they ricochet from gleeful to gloomy and back again, detouring to detachment and disgust along the way. I can’t place blame for this odd blend of undefinable auras surrounding me in caustic smoke and smooth vanilla. This sort of thing just happens. Eventually, I’ll find a way out. In the meantime, I’ll poke around in the immediate past and explore memories for clues.
Last night, I did as asked and went to Kollective Coffee+Tea, where I was to announce that I was there to read a poem by our dear departed friend of poetry, Bud, and then to do the deed. To my surprise, only four people (plus two staff) were in the business at the time. They seemed shocked and then amused by my outburst. After reading the poem, we (my wife accompanied me) walked to the appointed place where other readers who had been assigned to read in other galleries (along with many other people) gathered for a procession down the street to Superior Brewery, the location for a celebratory remembrance service. And we listened and enjoyed the experience. My wife and I left early, just after a slide show of Bud’s life was shown.
There’s nothing in that little slip of memory that would have created this morning’s odd assortment of moods.
Further back, but only by a few hours, I exchanged a couple of emails with a one-time acquaintance (I guess we remain acquaintances), wishing her a happy birthday. Nothing there.
Ach, it’s no use. There’s nothing causal in my readily accessible memory.
I think I need more coffee and, perhaps, a flour tortilla enlivened with a few drops of habanero salsa. And, then, a brain transplant, alongside an entirely new (and much younger) body in far better condition than the one I’m in.
Ah ha! I know what did it. I saw a headline when I glanced at the news on my computer this morning, claiming Moody’s is forecasting 45 will be re-elected in a landslide. WTF?! The end of civilization, already deeply in peril, is forecast? Well of course my mood will be strange and dangerous!
