Why I'm quitting drinking

Sure, everyone says it when they've got a bad hangover.  But I'm hoping that by putting it down here, I can demonstrate that it isn't just the hangover talking.

People drink alcohol for a lot of reasons.  Fun, flavor, and chemical dependency all play a role in it.  Another factor is social pressure.  Drinking alcohol is not just something one does in response to one's own body.  It's a performance for an audience.  What and how much you drink is socially determined as much as it is chemically determined.

For a long time, I was very worried that I would become addicted to alcohol.  I grew up with visible examples of alcoholism in my family, and I knew exactly what I never wanted to be.  I passed my 21st birthday with only a few curious sips, a customary can of budweiser (or something), and a sense of moral superiority.  Then came 22, and I compromised.  I learned to drink, and in time I learned to genuinely enjoy it.  But all the while, I worried about what would become of me if I lost control.  And when I did lose control, I spent the next mornings feeling guilty and sick.

As it happens, I became a drinker while living in Oregon, nestled among a fine collection of craft brewing houses.  I learned to savor good taste in beers, and to listen to my body when it started sending me negative messages.  I cut out hard liquor.  I tapered my drinking so that I could enjoy a buzz without succumbing to oblivion.  I did what I could to establish good drinking habits.  Everyone who drinks should do that, but in my case I was motivated by a very immediate kind of fear.

Just as there were alcoholics among my family, I found them among my close friends.  I didn't count myself among them, and I still don't.  But I was afraid, and I started drawing lines in the sand for myself.  I thought I would be safe as long as I observed certain basic rules.  Beyond that, I knew I would be safe if I stayed in control of my drinking.

I've been in South Korea for six months, and right now I don't really feel in control of my drinking.

At first, I thought I could retain control easily enough.  South Korea's beer selection is light on the craft I enjoy and heavy on the cheap, watery business of getting hammered.  I spent my first few months more concerned that I would be deprived of good drink than that I would have too much. 

I found good, imported beer.  I've got four bottles sitting in my refrigerator right now.  They've been sitting there for months because I just don't want them anymore. 

Never undestimate the effect a culture can have on your behavior.  In particular, never underestimate a drinking culture.  This nation may not brew the best, but it loves to consume.  And frankly, the prevailing attitude in the drinking culture of Korea strikes me as suicidal.  When I go out with my boss and my coworkers, I am expected to hurt myself.  I am expected to drink until I can be confident I'll have to throw it all up in the morning.  The pattern has been set.

It is not as if I do this all the time.  In point of fact, I don't go out very often.  I've even been able to dodge these outings a few times.  But you can't dodge them all, and I'm so desperate to avoid offending my boss that I eventually find myself quaffing "somaek" (beer with a soju shot) in perverse tests of manly endurance.  Then I feel euphoric and profoundly unhappy.

This morning, I missed the toilet bowl by a few inches.  A glimpse at my employer's more guarded emotions was not really worth the accompanying feelings of shame and disgust or the fluid on my feet.

You can't just drink slower than everyone else when there's a toast every two minutes.  You can't limit yourself to the quantity you know you can handle when your boss puts a two half liters in front of you and says "one shot".  You can't take it back when you feel yourself cross the line of no return.  It's so hard to say no to a drink when the whole gathering revolves around chicken and drinking.

And to think, all of this is supposed to be a celebration of the end of a stressful week.

I no longer drink because it's been a long day and I'd like a little something to relax.  These days, I drink because a man I don't much care for is trying to raise morale.  And frankly, it's hurting me.  I don't know how else to get out of it except by not drinking anymore.

Last weekend, I went to the hospital for a mandatory examination.  The doctors read my blood, and told me my "liver index" was high.  A followup ultrasound indicated I have the beginnings of Fatty Liver disease.  Whether it's the drinking or my diet that's causing it, I don't know.  But I can feel the pain I'm putting myself through.  And if there's one thing I know I never want to be, it's a patient with cirrhosis or hepatitis.

I thought about moderation.  But I don't really feel like moderation is a valid choice for me here.  Maybe when I'm back in America, and I feel more comfortable setting my own pace, that could change.  Right now, I feel more comfortable going on indefinite hiatus.   I'll give my beers away.  I'll stick to tea.

I've been a drinker for five years because I compromised with social expectations.  Back then, I weighed the risks against a desire to be of the world, not left out of a more-or-less universal custom.  Now, I'm renegotiating the terms of that compromise.  I'm tired of being at war with my body.  I want some control back in my life.

R.E.M. Unplugged

I've been a fan of R.E.M. at least since my Freshman year of college.  Back in my most active period of  album purchasing, I got into the band through Automatic for the People and Out of Time.  I thought they were beautiful records (even if Out of Time is occasionally silly as hell), but lacked the determination to make a full exploration of their catalog.  So those two albums stood alone in my collection, played and enjoyed, but not immoderately so.

Somehow, it wasn't until this year that I became a Fan.  That's a capital F right there, indicating the kind of enthusiast that puts time and energy toward analyzing the history and the psychology behind every track, living in the stories of every album and the musicians who made them.  You can communicate a lot with a capital F.

It wasn't a sudden discovery of the rest of their albums; through the magic of the internet, I'd heard many of them before.  But something really clicked this year.  I was feeling emotionally vulnerable: like so many times before in my life, I sought comfort in old music.   Perhaps it was pure chance, but R.E.M.'s first five albums came through for me in a huge way.  They hit me right in the feelings, and like a baby chick I imprinted on their mumbly jangling with a fierceness.  Now my girlfriend gives me the side eye whenever she hears "Don't Go Back to Rockville", but I'm a happy man with what might be a new favorite band.

And what are the odds, amidst this peculiar eruption of love, that R.E.M. would put out a new live album this year?  Unplugged: The Complete 1991 and 2001 Sessions  came along a few days ago and gave me another perfect excuse to do exactly what I've been itching to do: gush at length about my new obsession.  

Admittedly, the sound that fired my imagination so hotly was not the acoustic style on display here.  I was more than familiar with R.E.M. in this mode, but it's the electricity of Fables of the Reconstruction and Lifes Rich Pageant that has had me raving in recent days.  At their best, R.E.M. in those years put dynamism alongside mystery in a way that no other band could touch.  They were fast and beautiful and endlessly interpretable.  Best of all, they hit all my musical sweet spots: juicy backing vocals, melodic bass lines, shiny guitar sounds, the works.  The diversity of their sound was always a part of the appeal, but I was certifiably taken with the rock n' roll.

Now, Unplugged has brought me back to the soft embrace of Peter Buck's mandolin.  Put in the context of R.E.M.'s history, this long-delayed live album (or pair of them, if that's how you want to look at things) reveals their real greatness: not a particular set of conventions or instruments, but the overwhelming force of their personalities.  Separated by a decade, both shows are steeped in humanity.  Even when they change the arrangements, R.E.M. never stop sounding honest.

A contemporary of Out of Time, the 1991 concert has its share of goofiness.  They don't come out and play "Shiny Happy People" (thank God), but a few tracks come across as shallow gimmicks without the amplifiers.  "Radio Song" was gimmicky already, but playing it acoustic and sans-rap doesn't do it any real favors (go figure).  Michael Stipe's fake country accent, on the other hand, gives "The End of the World As We Know It" just the right kind of fun to compensate for the lack of watts.  Alongside sublime versions of "Fall On Me" and other songs that fit more comfortably and seriously in an acoustic set, the net effect is fun and warm and impossibly beautiful.

What of the second concert?  Minus Bill Berry and further removed from the band's dashing indie days, I confess I wasn't quite as eager to hear it.  It's too easy to valorize the youth of a band, especially when they visibly slow down in their old age.  Fewer of the 2001 songs sound like experiments (silly or otherwise), because by that time the whole "unplugged" aesthetic had become somewhat closer to R.E.M.'s default sound.  The band was already maturing in 91; they didn't get any younger.  But listening to the songs themselves, I found myself caring less and less.  Rock n' roll may be a special kind of thrill, but you can't really argue with beauty.

Stipe sounds a little more grizzled and old, but it doesn't really change his style that much.  Neither does the band neglect its old material, which is perhaps why Unplugged treats us to two versions of "Losing My Religion".  Concert number two is a much more straightforward affair, more what you might expect from rock stars with acoustic guitars and a mood for contemplation.  It's good that it's so pretty, or that might be the end of the conversation.  R.E.M.'s songs really are that moving, though.  I could listen to "Imitation of Life" for days, and if I get the chance I intend to.

I won't call this album essential, but I will call it a gift from one of the most remarkable bands of their time.  A band that ages as gracefully as this is one for the history books: the sort of thing to pay attention to.  Maybe it's just because I'm getting older, or maybe I've always been too old inside for my own good, but I appreciate that artistry.

Check this one out, reflect on your mortality, and thank someone for all the beauty in this world.  

Keep Cool, Boy

That last post may have come across as angry.  I'm sure it came across as relentlessly sarcastic.  It might even be genuinely offensive.  So rather than let the blog sit on that note, I thought I would try to introduce a little perspective on the matter.

In a way, I regret writing it.  I don't claim to be a sage, but I do believe it's wiser to say nothing when all you want to do is denigrate someone.  It's not just the scatological insults that can cause collateral damage, after all.  If someone truly is a scoundrel, they'll remain so even if you refrain from pointing it out.  Unfortunately,  people do things for other reasons than careful consideration of what is and isn't wise.  Someone in my life has made a mess of things, and I wrote a mean little essay about them.  It's a little childish, but in my defense, so is the whole situation.

The sad truth is, Tara and my adventure in Korea is not going as smoothly as hoped.  You can read about all our troubles on the other blog; I'm not going to rehash them here.  Essentially, we were taken advantage of by people who ought to have known better.  We ought to have known better than to trust them.  Now we are stuck, and will probably have to do something a little crazy to get unstuck.

I'm just glad that, even with all the uncertainty in our lives today, Tara and I still have each other to rely on.  Together, we reaffirm the necessity and the practicability of trust and love, and together we are not afraid.  We'll work something out, and be better (and yes, wiser) for our troubles.

And in the meantime, I have a weekend ahead of me with not much to do.  I think I will make myself feel better by writing something good and worthwhile.  Potty-mouthed catharsis is nice, but it won't stand the test of time.  It's high time for something more sophisticated on this blog.  Something that I can look back on and smile at.  Probably something with less swearing.

English and the Insult

*The following post contains, and indeed dwells considerably upon, profanity*

About a month ago, I had a conversation with a Korean friend of mine concerning the most effective ways to describe a disliked person in English.  Her English was pretty good, and she already had quite a handle on the basics of swearing, letting loose a series of fucks and bastards with righteous fury.  But she seemed dissatisfied with the limitations of English cursing, feeling that these words didn't really get at the heart of why the object of her ire was so detestable.  My helpful suggestions of motherfucker, asshole, and son of a bitch served only to illustrate her point.  American English at least does not have a very extensive list of devastating curses.

Recently, I too have had reason to consider the most effective way to utterly disparage the character of another human being in my native tongue.  It's not surprising really; we've all been in that sort of mood, and it's not really important to know who we're talking about today or what they've done to deserve such infamous treatment.  Trust me when I say that the bastard has earned the abuse.

As a matter of principle, I want to avoid the use of insulting language that derives its impact from racial, sexual, or gender identity, or from mental or physical disability.  I think we're all better than that.  A truly effective, devastating insult should bear on something worthy of insulting: namely, a person's lack of integrity.  I have taken the liberty to compile a short list of terms (with definitions) that I think should be considered more often by Americans in the throes of passionate rage:

Scoundrel: a dishonest or unscrupulous person.
Blackguard: a person, particularly a man, who behaves in a dishonorable or contemptible way.
Heel: an inconsiderate or untrustworthy person.
Punk: someone worthless or unimportant; a hoodlum.
Scum: a low, worthless, or evil person.
Miscreant: a vicious or depraved person.
Reprobate: a depraved, unprincipled, or wicked person.
Dastard: a mean, sneaking coward.

If you ask me, that's a nasty list!  There aren't many people I know who would enjoy being called any of these things.  But they don't really have the weight you'd expect from something as serious as an insult.  They certainly don't feel like real curses, the sort of thing that could get you sent to the principal's office, or thrown out of an especially genteel book club (maybe "scum," but not the rest).  In fact, words like "miscreant" almost sound like the opposite of an insult, the sort of thing an upper class person with delicate sensibilities might say to avoid giving offense.  That's not what I want to do here.  I want to be very offensive.

One common principle of insults seems to be that, in order to truly communicate that someone is detestable, you can't just say that they are.  You have to go beyond saying what they are and make what they are sound like something that no one will ever love, possibly because they are contaminated with some sort of contagious, weaponized germ.

There are some exceptions to this principle.  Calling someone something as simple as coward, thief, or liar can provoke a fistfight under the right conditions.  If the person I wish to insult is a liar (and they are), then it seems like I have a built-in advantage to my quest to be offensive.  The problem is, there aren't many words in English that mean "liar" but can't be spoken in polite company.  Oath breaker?  Dissembler?  Fabulist?  Deceiver?  Maybe if you throw in a good strong "fucking" to carry the load.

Nobody wants to sound unhip while delivering an insult: doing so insults oneself by implication.  I think that's why our pool of insults is so conservative, limited to a few old standbys and some unjust digs at marginalized groups.  Nobody wants to go out on a limb by committing to a word like miscreant if it will be perceived as dated or wimpy.  That's also why nobody avails themselves of classic Shakespearean skewers like "umuzzled tardy-gaited barnacle" or "fobbing whoreson coxcomb."  They may be thoroughly rude, but they're adventurous and untested.  Fucking asshole may be muted, but everyone gets the idea right away.

There is one school of insults in English that remains creative: the scatological insult.  A scatological insult does not really aim to describe its target; rather, it aims to disturb everyone in hearing range with unpleasant images, and the possibilities are positively unbounded.  If a more character-derived insult is something of a dueling sword, then a scatological insult is like some kind of radiological bomb.  My target may be a despicable heel, but I can do more damage to the surrounding environment if I call them a dribbling shitstain.  And sometimes, that's a fine thing to do.

In this case, I think it better to forgo the use of toilet imagery and stick with the descriptive, character-based insult.  In fact, I've decided to go with scoundrel, a word that doesn't get nearly enough serious use in this day and age.  Make no mistake, there are scoundrels among us.  They should be disparaged and degraded, but most of all they should be recognized for what they truly are.

Korean New Year, a little bit older

Here in South Korea, we just celebrated Seollal, or the Korean Lunar New Year.  Those of you who follow my Korea blog (I'm sure that's all of you) know that Tara and I had a fine adventure in Seoul last weekend, observing some new year's customs.  But there's one thing I didn't put down in the most recent blog post, a little custom which I'd like to talk about now.

In many east Asian countries, there is an alternative way of reckoning a person's age.  You might think that the question "how old are you" does not require much analysis, but like most things reated to counting, much depends on where you start.  Korea does have the western-style age system of counting completed years since the date of one's birth.  However, this is mostly a matter for the legal system: the traditional system is far more commonly used.

It goes like this.  On the day of your birth, you are considered to be one.  It's often said that this takes into account the preceding nine months of womb time, but I am not fully convinced that this is the reason; it may just be that the people who dreamt up this system didn't think that being less than one made sense.  So you start at one, and your age increases by one at a fixed point each year: not your own birthday, but rather the first day of the Lunar Year.

There are a couple of interesting consequences for this choice of counting.  Everyone born in the same year is the same age, of course, which is a little more convenient from an astrological point of view (and traditional astrology is by no means out of favor here).  It also means that the many babies born late in the year find themselves two years old within a few months of birth.  Koreans tend to count early childhood ages by days rather than years, but it's still a little disorienting to think of all those precocious agers out there.

And then, of course, there is the disorientation that comes into the humble western expatriate's life.  By western reckoning, I am twenty six years old (my birthday is in late February, so I am a few weeks from being twenty seven).  By Korean reckoning, however, I turned twenty eight last weekend, along with all my cohorts in the year of the Rabbit.

All of this, of course, is a very extended way of saying that I feel old and Korea is not helping.  I like being twenty six.  Rather, I don't want to be older than twenty six.  I'm still mourning the loss of twenty four.  I've spent the past year making peace with the inevitability of twenty seven.  And now all of a sudden, I'm twenty eight?  That is not cool.

Twenty eight is plenty young, I know.  And I'm out traveling the world, which is a suitably young-person-ish thing to do.  I don't really have that much cause to mourn a wasted youth (maybe a little, but certainly not "much").  But it takes you off guard, counting yourself older than usual.  It's like looking into a very scary, future-revealing mirror.  You may learn things you aren't ready to know.  You might accidentally trigger an early mid-life crisis.  Before you know it, you're riding an exploding motorcycle off an exploding dam.

Still, twenty eight isn't that bad so far.  I still have most of my hair, anyway.  But I should probably get out of here before my fellow Rabbits start turning thirty.

The Girl From Ipanema Passes

I came across an unusual Microsoft Word file today, while transferring a powerpoint document to a computer at work.  Many of the files I find are "unusual", to me anyway, because they are often in Korean and I have no idea what they mean.  The English they may contain is not always enough to convey the file's true significance to me.  It may as well be nonsense.

And that's OK.  Having been here only a little more than a month, I don't expect everything to make sense.  In fact, I kind of enjoy the sensation.  It's not always convenient or unstressful, but there's a certain sense of discovery that comes with watching a scenario unfold around me, without the benefit of understanding all the words that float past my brain.  If you're not a little confused, I say, you're not really traveling.

This file, however, was unusual in a different sense.  It somehow evoked meaning for me, despite being apparently meaningless.  Perhaps its creator could explain its contents, but I doubt the explanation would be very good.  It could never be as satisfying as the glow it kindled in my mind, though I doubt there was much sense in that either.

The file was named "David", and that's my name.  It's not an especially uncommon name, but I am in South Korea and there's no other Davids around that I know of.  It was probably created by or for another David who worked here previously, perhaps years ago.  But I was curious and (as always) eager for some distraction.  So I decided to pretend the file was a message intended for me, and I opened it.

Inside I found this text, presented exactly as follows: 

Did you sleep well?
English Only
How old are you?
Tomorrow I’ll be 1 year older!
50
Who Can swim well?
Breast stroke
Front crawl = free style
Butterfly Stroke
장재우
Happy Birthday to you. (x3)
Happy Birthday dear 재우Happy Birthday to you.

Let’s do some warm up exercise before swimming


Tall and tan and young and lovely,
The girl from Ipanema goes walking
And when she passes,
each one she passes goes – ah
When she walks, she walks like a samba
That swings so cool and sways so gentle
That when she passes,
each one she passes goes – ah

(ooh) But I watch he so sadly,
how can I tell her I love her
Yes I would give her heart gladly,
But each day, she walks to the sea
She looks straight ahead, not at me

If nothing else, this should serve as a warning to the psychologically unbalanced, not to go around pretending that randomly encountered computer data are actually secret messages, improbably placed in your path.  That is crazy thinking.  I should never have entertained the mindset.  But it's far too late to stop now.

This text document, as a whole, makes absolutely no sense.  It's not a lesson plan, or even a coherent train of thought.  Whatever purpose it may have had (assuming it is not the musings of a madman) has evaporated into the mists of time.  But it has my name on it, and The Girl From Ipanema is one of my favorite songs.  So I saved it, and I started thinking.

I went about my work for the day, humming and singing the song to myself when I was alone.  I taught a class using the very same computer where I found the mysterious doc.  I even forgot about it for a little while.

And now, at the end of the day, I simply cannot shake the feeling that I have to tell everyone I know about this file.  "Guys, guys, listen!  I found a file with my name and some random nonsense inside!  And The Girl From Ipanema was there!"

How must that sound when spoken aloud?

I thought for a while I might turn it into fiction, the mysterious setup for a bit of strangeness.  But I should have known from the start that this was a bad idea.  You see, I think that about a lot of things.  I can hardly be alone with myself without thinking "this would make a good start for a story".  A brief glance at my work will bear this out.  I don't write nearly enough to satisfy my artistic urges, or to really develop the craft.  But I do write enough to develop my own reliable cliches.

So there I was, thinking the same old thoughts about solitary fiction over some empty text.  I got wise soon enough, but the thing is that it never really felt empty.  I don't know who 재우 is, or whether they're going swimming or not, but all of a sudden I had a song on my lips.  The girl from Ipanema was there, swaying her hips like a samba, and not looking at me.  It was meaningless, but it was true.

What the hell was she doing there, under my name?  I'll never know, because the David who wrote this document is long gone.  The only thing I can say for sure about him is that he doesn't really have a strong sense of what's worth saving and what isn't.  Or, maybe he does?

I don't think I'll write a story about The Girl From Ipanema.  It's been done.  It's not really where my interests lie, narrative wise.  But god, do I love that song.  And here, from the most improbable place, it's reached out and twisted my thoughts into something I don't want to forget about.  It was a sudden moment when something passed, and all I could say was - ah.

Poetry Jam #14

The new year is upon me, a full seventeen hours earlier than usual.  With 2013 slipping out the door, I thought, what better celebration for the turning of the calendar than another batch of poetry?

Other than Dayquil and chamomile, of course.  I have quite the sore throat, unfortunately, so I won't be reading any of it out loud.  Did you know I usually read them out loud?  Of course you didn't.

You might do the honors instead, if you're interested.  Poetry is for the ears as much as for the eyes, if not more.  These poems date from February to July of 2013, so keep that in mind for your pronunciation.

Have a happy, multi-sensory new year.


Real Strange Genes

There ought to be a song about
the way your fingers do that thing
they do sometimes, when you are trying
to impress a crowd of girls.

That thing they do is brave,
bizarre, and just a bit offensive;
"got himself some real strange genes"
they'll sing around a minor chord.

But no one ought to sing this song
in public, if they have good taste.
That thing your fingers do will get
us all arrested soon enough.


You will know me by the time I'm gone

You will know me by the time I'm gone
and you won't miss me.
You may wonder where I've gone today
but you won't wish that
you were with me:
it will already be so.


Sudoku

Sometimes I don't get sudoku.
Sometimes it seems arbitrary,
like there's no solution,
almost like the rules are changing
while I scribble in the boxes;
sometimes, it's a bother.

Other times I want to break them,
force the numbers into order;
sometimes I can do it.
Sometimes I take weeks to solve it,
then the obvious solution
kicks me in the stomach.

Sometimes I dislike my puzzles.


Law and Order

Anyone like me can see you're happy
in your little house, where
anyone who'd like to hurt you only
has to force the locks;

that's just life in human cities on the
walls of planet Earth, where
freedom and security are promises
of little talks.

Silhouettes can vanish from the window
of a little house, where
law and order keeps us happy, sleeping
in our little box.

That's just life in human houses under
stars and moonlit nights, when
anyone can soundly fall asleep in
little city blocks.


Cognitive Red

Nothing's red about red
and none of you can prove it;
keep your reds and I
will do with mine as I
see fit.
If I see fit to deny it,
I will deny,
and if I see fit to claim it
for myself,
then all the rest
will have to make do with other
reds,
hiding under every bed,
preoccupations
with what is right
and what is red
and white.


Keyhole Wisdom

Hold your own and shake your head,
before you're beaten
on the field of crimson flowers
bloomed in triumph,
blooming in the sunset,
stained with crimson
by defeat.

Don't allow your fate to flower
in these fields;
hold your own and shake your head!
That's what father
in his wisdom
said.

That is what I overheard while
listening that night
before the field was stained with red.


Glory is a Lie

Glory is a lie,
is a fiction that we tell ourselves
when other lies are stretched
beyond the breaking,

is the last resort of human minds
that must acknowledge truth
when they are murdered

by ideas - killed by politics,
immediate, abstract
and calculated,

bleeding out because of economics.
Glory is a lie,
a comfort to the ones
who face the Terror,

for the living and the dying, but
no comfort to the dead
or those who miss them,

or the ones whom Terror takes
without remorse.  The violence
is not redemption,

nor a path to everlasting lives
with noble, selfless friends
who've lost their heads and

hands and heartbeats, but retain their smiles
at their duties done.
Their death is death
and glory is a lie.


How to Talk about Scallions

How to talk about scallions
in a format that is not a cookbook,
garden magazine,
or esoteric journal?

The work of some alchemist
who wouldn't settle for less.
How to talk about scallions
in a way that

everyone would accept was worth the talking,
not a waste of alchemist's breath
or ink from inviscid pens?

How to talk about scallions
like a professional,
when what you really want to talk about is
garlic,

and its flavors and its uses
and the peculiar facts of its
etymology?

How to talk about scallions
without pausing to mention
scallawags,
without pondering the steps

by which an "a"
becomes an /i/
without anybody noticing?

Keep it focused, keep it flavored,
keep it peppered with the love
that is its due.

How to talk about scallions
in a poem about onions
that smells like a kitchen
preparing the most incredible soup
the chef has ever boiled?

How to say enough about
scallions.


Chemicals

Memory is chemicals
and everything is chemicals
and everything we know and love's
a chemical illusion,
but we love it and
we wouldn't have it any other way.

Understand the chemistry
and everything's a mystery
in spite of everything you know:
the beauty of our love is
that the mystery
persists in spite of everything we say.

Memory is wonderful
for making love, and chemicals
can turn you on, and turn you off,
before you can remember
that you love it and
you've waited for those chemicals all day.


Baseball

When I was young I learned from baseball
all I ever had to know,
that there was no sense in living fast, except
when chasing first or passing second,
rounding third or running home;

as long as there are sunny days
and summer afternoons for baseball,
standing still between the blades of grass
and hearing passing cars,
there is no sense in living faster
than the crack of bats,
no sense in speeding up.


Backyard Nature Reserve

The long grass rippling in the wind -
I will not mow the lawn.
This is where the deer have played,
and this is not my lawn,
this is no concern of mine.
Sun shines on the waving grass,
I will not cut it down
because I like to see it waving
on a blustery day;
it's no concern of mine, except
I hope the deer come back to play.


Against Solipsism

After careful thought,
consideration, and deliberation,
I've concluded that you're real;
on a leap of faith, I'd say the same
of planets, purple flowers,
atoms,
operas,
minnows,
stained-glass windows.

Their reality I cannot prove,
but yours is indisputable,
beyond a reasonable doubt:
for all my powers of imagination
and my skills of self-deception,
I could never hope to dream you
up from scratch.

You must be real,
or I must be perfect,
and, my love, we know
the latter simply isn't so.


Rockwell Court

In this old house of mine, where I was happy,
I was angry, I was sometimes just
depressed, I am spending one more night,
and I am likely never coming back.

My memories cannot do justice to
a home where I knew shame and found release,
through triumph, and through quiet maturation:
where I screamed 'til I was hoarse and learned
that screaming was against my nature, and
I lacked the time to practice.  Here I dreamed
about amazing futures in the stars
I fixed across my ceiling, and I held
her naked breasts behind closed doors, and made
ridiculous mistakes that will be haunting
me for years.  My poetry cannot
reveal the pain and comfort, or the loss
and joy of living here, of leaving in
a broken state and coming home to be
renewed.  I lack the words to say it right,
and all that I'm prepared to say before
I go is thank you, sorry, and goodbye.


The Tragedies

The truth is the way
things have been since the day
she was born, and the best
of the truth makes her ache
in her conscience and tremble
with rage in her chest.

So she prefers fiction
and speaks "revolution"
and makes life a chore
for the comfortable people
who settle for facts
that they ought to ignore.


The Last Song on the Album

With a few hours left
before I fall asleep again,
I wrote that song, you know the one.
It ends the album on a quiet note,
but gets louder in the middle
like it still remembers glories past
and doesn't want to fade away
like so much noise from little speakers
in my head.
It gets the usual chords and then,
as usual,
gets its melancholy lyrics,
then it fades against its will
before I fall asleep again.

______________________________

Commentary is brief because I'm sleepy.

The title of Real Strange Genes comes from the lyrics of a Who song, and this is not the first time that has happened to me.  The Who are just really good, ok?  As for what the fingers in this poem are doing, I'll never tell.

Law and Order is my deep and meaningful commentary on our persistent vulnerability to improbable and unpredictable violent rampages.  It is very deep and meaningful.  Honest.

Cognitive Red, Keyhole Wisdom, and Glory is a Lie all go together like a triad.  A triptych, if you will.  Or maybe just a trilogy.  A very bloody trilogy about strife and fighting and dying and all that good stuff.  Like most sets of three, the middle installment is the weakest.  I do like the metrical work on the others, though.

How to Talk about Scallions is a poem about poetry and trying to write it when you have no idea what you're doing.  I never really know what I'm doing.  But also it's about scallions.

Chemicals and Against Solipsism are both love poems for Tara, of course.  I love her so much, I just keep writing her poetry!  Here I express that love in more philosophical and scientifical (?) terms than before.

My landlords went on a long vacation last spring and neglected to arrange for the lawn to be mowed in their absence.  Hence, Backyard Nature Preserve.  I honestly liked it better that way.

I wrote Rockwell Court fully believing that I would never again set foot in the house where I spent my teenage years, as my mom was moving out soon and I was on my way back to Oregon.  It turned out that, when I returned a few months later, I had to go back two or three times to help fix something before the new owners moved in.  Life is never as clean as poetry.  Anyway, it's a poem about being a sad, weird teenager in a setting that's doomed to disappear from one's life.  Or rather, being a grown-up (?) with all kinds of feelings about being that sad, weird teenager.  It's complicated and weird.

The Tragedies is sort of my tribute to girls (and other humans) who don't take shit from the crowd that says "that's just how it is."  Rock on.

You know the songs The Last Song on the Album is about.  If you listen to albums, anyway.  Does anyone listen to albums anymore?