‘The Indiscreet Stoicism of the Bourgeoisie’

But back in those lazily forthcoming times,
When everybody belonged
To a blue, dumber universe
And politics and philosophy were still to discover their necessary streets,               I would propose that too many                                                                         Infinite evenings
had taken their sway, sanctioned
Rightful and unregretted
Escapes, and have by now arrived at nothing but a voidance                                 Of Concern,
In that american tv lounge
In this country.

She thinks of it like a kind of homebrew narcotic,                                             Coated with a striking magenta corona,
An intimate explosion
A torch ballad inculcated in a corner                                                                         Of your room that was its own room
And masters could not yet answer uncensored questions
(Because they just weren’t asked?)
While I was already mapping out the room of my retirement, at 10 or 11,       Amidst what might as well have been the Twenty-Seventh century;                   Bitter revolutions lapping like purring cats on the soul’s bored shore,             Wearing school shoes scuffed as your edition of Daniel Deronda.

“Can one vacation from Vacation?”
“Surely never not the worst kinds of questions?”                                                       “I’ll admit I always even mean my jokes seriously…”                                            “You don’t have anything to do with yourself.”                                                  “Should that matter?”
“It does already, but carry on regardless.”

And so this is the reason for other people:                                                            The potential for heaven in a handshake                                                                   &                                                                                                                                The promise of purgatory in a frenchkiss.

(March 8, 2015)