Pseudo-Improv for a Grey, Post-Election Wednesday

[Originally typed up in Facebook. Transposed here intact, with font formatting added.]

Seems so quiet
I know there's life here
wasn't so long ago
it strode plain

towering Hyatt
pierced the stratosphere
room to grow
to a new plane

who would buy it
it would disappear
a seaward flow
as of rain

reverse riot
lyingly severe
a bush aglow
the flaming brain

heat will fry it
cracked and sere
perfected so
it can only complain

who could deny it
meiosis of fear
creeps from below
and will not abstain

who dares to try it
a radical shift
a bent timeline
to a better course

scattered power
perform this lift
seek to combine
each disparate resource

hour follows hour
the widening rift
the slopes decline
void of remorse

to survey and scour
to gather and sift
and fall with a whine
from soul-crushing force

and sit recessed, sour
and just vaguely miffed
to find nothing fine
that one could endorse

each passing flower
may perchance be sniffed
or wither in sunshine
doting energy source

or have weeds devour
all that's far and near
how I long to know
we can break this chain

Seems so quiet
and easy to drift
if I can just hear
even sounds of mine
then I could go
like a whipped horse
bolting from pain
to a gentle shower
and new territory
without restriction

an alien story
fact or fiction?

Choice Chirps, Part II

Long time no choose chirps for the blog. Hence, this'll be a long comp. I may play with the formatting a bit. Now, since the last time I did this, my approach to Twitter has evolved some. I'm dabbling more in micropoetry (don't panic, I don't do soft erotica) and random wordplay. (Also, sex/gender issues and meridian, but except for the #YesAllWomen tweets near the end, I am excluding those here.) It's getting more difficult to make my definitive choices. I'm not quite ready to admit it: I need another editor. Or six.

Or you can just follow me.

****

Nineteen Angels of Anaheim dance on this tweet.

[...because that tweet was "pinned". —lack of ed.]

What's an obstructionist's favorite type of sex? Anal.

Austerity jewelry: those white, plastic pull-thingies from juice and milk cartons.

thy will be dumb

Dear dogs: The expression "Eat shit" is not meant to be taken literally. Serenity, Cheshire

information superhighway robbery

I prefer people who are doing good in the community over people who are doing well. Especially when the former are doing their good well.

Don't you get kinda discouraged when you realize you gotta clip your fingernails again?

Nothing seems to rhyme with "bulb". Or "film".

Do people who write/type out "G-d" do something similar for "S-tan" or "L-cifer"? It would seem only fair. And who would censor the name of their deity, anyway? Someone who thinks their deity really extra-horrible, I would think.

We've reached a dystopia foretold in classic literature. *sigh*....Or, well....

Maybe Eurasia and East Asia qualify as "proles"...........

freedom of depressed

it takes one to no one

just following hors d'oeuvres

Sudden Clarity Clarence: The word "pee" ..... is just the spelled-out first letter of "piss"

Austerity expressions: "This isn't really my cup of Ramen."

Play on
words from
a songwriter

You can't say "MTV" without "empty".

Prediction: Someone, somewhere, will think it a good idea to replace car windshields with computer screens that show what's in front of the car. When the computer system "crashes"......

The name "Osh Kosh B'Gosh". I just don't care for it.

Propaganda: To place a waterfowl in a strategic place.

Why is the "selfie" such a big phenomenon? No one wants to associate with cyber-addicts enough to take their picture for them?

outcast
ain't healin'
the pain inside

I forgot how to human.

Beloit Mindset List: All my life, my parents have occasionally said "Hey there, ho there, mouseketeer". I have never known what this means.

Subversive: Not quite poetry....

Maybe would-be employers think I'm a bit off. Well, with each job offer I don't get, I get offer.

Beloit Mindset List: Only through certain comic illustrations do I have any idea what a "dunce cap" is.

The sound of all those crows is driving me bats. Caws and effect.

Technically, every time we eat, we're breaking our fast.

Beloit Mindset List: "Rock" has never been a physical, inanimate object.

malicious
militias

In Boggle, the lone X, Z, J, K, B, and Qu are all on the same cube, thereby making certain words impossible to ever get: joke, baby, banquet, pizza, kayak, jazz, boxes, jinx.......

....and that's the current state of my life.

Beloit Mindset List: Trash cans have never been round, metal affairs.

We have "palindrome" to describe a word that's still itself when reversed, but what about words that are different words when reversed? (e.g. lived ←→ devil) What's the word for that?

Warmth smells funny.

"Contempt of court" seems an unnecessary thing. A good system shouldn't need a self-esteem booster.

Why is that show called "Dateline"? I wouldn't date any of those people. They're either murderers or dead.

The Landline's Down on Broadway

Idea seeking illustration: A child-drawn world map, with one bit labeled "Isreal" and another labeled "Isntreal".

language in pain

"Curiosity Rover" is a verified account.

Sudden Soul-Crushing Clarity Clarence: "Mommy" is almost certainly derived from "Mammy", or "thing like us but with boobs". Such high regard for our female just-over-half!

working for the weakened

Today I learned that it is now taboo to ask the names of people's pets, because those people tend to use those pets' names as their online passwords.

I could never get into a sport where "traveling" is against the rules and gets you penalized.

The passive voice shall forever be supported!

In adulthood, you have to burp yourself.

daybreaks
peaces of
the night

Here's a golden marketing opportunity: A home theater system from Apple. It would be called "Apple Cinema".

a Kafkaesque soulless
solace beneath the
ether impenetrable
limpin' in trouble

Cartoon seeking illustration: Nashville party: "Wear your best boots!" Northern boy shows up in heavy-duty winter shoes.

I hear classic distinct voices like Louis Armstrong and Jimmy Durante, and I realize: they would never become famous today.

Sane. Insane. Guess which word I learned first in my life...?

"Is this sponsored by Kraft? 'Cause it's the CHEESIEST, baby!"

No wonder Colorado approved medical marijuana. It relieves the pain from all the gunshot wounds.

Sleep apnea is hereditary. My father snores and knocks all around in the next room, making all kinds of noise, and then I can't sleep.

I never got into the Muppets.

The aggressive
flower seller
pushing daisies

the holiday seizin'

I like to make up my own slang for "awesome", "cool", etc. Novel. Angelic. Innovative.

The system is simultaneously fixed and broken.

Any time you encounter the word "party", replace it with "potty". "I can't sleep; they're havin' a loud potty across the way." It's especially accurate when describing the political potties.

My annual New Years jokes: "My resolution: 1280 × 1024" ; and "Now that the ball has dropped, maybe New York can start to grow up."

A quick shout-out to the people who will active MAKE this a happy year.

FLAC: Audio files for audiophiles.

A bread indeed. A bread in knead.

Her hair looks wavy. But it doesn't wave.

I was a big fan of the Road Runner as a child. Now, I cruise the information superhighway. And Street View.

You may be a cyberaddict if you think you recognize an acquaintance in Street View — in a city more foreign than your best friend's thoughts.

viewers nothing whatsoever like me

the silence of complete and utter strangers

the silence of the sheep

the BAAHing of boors

in the slaughterhouse queue

Frustration is sexy.

I'm not a big enough fan to create it, but there should be someone with the Twitter handle "lantarhythmsection".

I keep thinking the word is "stagnance", rather than "stagnation". Why can't it be "stagnance"? More to the point, why can't it be vibrancy?

Can you television from a hunch?

Odd number: A song that doesn't follow the Axis of Awesome "four-chord" structure.

How great would it be to be named Simon? No matter what you say, people would have to heed you. Simon said it.

a search engine that focuses exclusively on Jewish recipes, named "Kugel"

"Start over again" sounds like we're starting for the third or more time, doesn't it? Maybe we should just admit that what we're doing isn't working.

Why, in 2014, aren't washers and dryers combined into one appliance?

damn soul in distress

Schwinn salesman: A bike peddler.

"I'm trying"
words from
a nuisance

eke a mouse from the floorboards

It takes one to call one that ........, friend.

Amen: A phrase shouted when trying to get the attention of some guys.

Cartoon seeking illustration: "We asked you to make a new APSE for the church, not an APP!" (monitor reads "ERROR 404 GOD NOT FOUND")

The percent chance for precipitation is always a multiple of ten.

Oh, rivet a guest already!

time marches ana

flying so
              lo
to the ground

Thanks to Joyce Carol Oates for the phrase "concatenation of experiences". I'm just...so in love with it.

Say No to the Show

taking a bitch-slap forward

Alas: what an Irishman exclaims upon spotting an Irishwoman.

"OKCupid" sounds like an admission of defeat, doesn't it? Like a last resort. "....UUUGGGGHHH....oKAY, Cupid. May as well get this over with. God fucking dammit."

I was all prepared with the response, "Lonely." But they never asked me how I was!

Smiling fazes.

practicing moderation........in moderation

from a new point of you

Adults don't get to wear "onesies".

I want to be loved. How fucking original.

open window to
a writer's soul
it's very drafty

the Love Song of J Alfred E Neuman

In chess, the king, although especially vulnerable and limited, can still kill.

Sudden Clarity Clarence: His name is Mercury. Mercury is used in old-school thermometers, which measure temperature in degrees.........FAHRENHEIT!

Life is a death threat.

Current popular television in a nutshell: Hunger Game of Thrones

Game of Throwin' Up

adding insult to imagery

I stumble from a long line of klutzes.

Potential baby names: Madeline Rain, Empathy, Ellie Delights, Dusk. Boy or girl, I don't give a shit.

I have a square magnet from the postmodern art museum. I have no idea which way is up.

T Women and a Truck

Take me to your two-liter.

She's like soft-serve. Cold and flavorless.


Much .edu about nothing

[I hat-tipped Nein Quarterly on the above tweet and earned a retweet with it, thus it has become my biggest hit tweet so far. And possibly my only hit tweet. —lack of ed.]

Re "The last man on earth sat alone in a room"... I might not mind being the only man in an otherwise all-female world. Σ:+)

You can't spell "lifeline" without "feline".

Beloit Mindset List: TLC has never stood for "Tender loving care". ....OR "The Learning Channel", come to think of it. But! It just might be a pop group.

What do I call someone who thrusts their obsession with small, annoying dogs on everyone? A terrierist.

Falafelsophy: Life is all about food.

Hope never dies, but it does remain comatose on life support indefinitely.

masturbaderoom

straitjacket on a crooked mind

the scene of the cryin'

her birthday she
pulled a Shakespeare
Willie reached
la petite mort

political science

poli sci

polizei

nothing's gonna change

Radish: Kind of, sort of, cool.

Beloit Mindset List: Many kids probably have no idea what that (2001: A Space Odyssey) music in all the ads is from.

Enjoyment of court-oriented TV shows is a "guilty" pleasure.

Fairy cries for mercy

waking up to
the barking of dogs
I don't love

devil-may-be-wholly-apathetic-like-the-rest-of-us

Miles and miles of dry land are what separate the men from the buoys.

Firedfox

baruch ata I dunno [Deepest apologies if anyone takes offense at this one. —lack of ed.]

entree the giant

#YesAllWomen. Because maybe not all men, but still clearly way too many of us.

People: Respect every human. Never rape, abuse, or harass anyone. It's that simple. ☮

My male feminist views are dissenting ones that will get me nowhere in this society. #YesAllWomen

And #YesAllPeople are impacted by our societal values. Women and men alike perpetuate harmful standards.

Concurrent trending hashtags: #YesAllWomen; #ThingsGirlsSayDuringSex; #MemorialDay. Yay, 'murica! And where was #ThingsBoysSayDuringSex? See the first hashtag...

Saw the media
shower. A shooting                               star nowhere to be
found

A photoshop error is a manip-slip.

just in headcase

Contemporary TV comedy in a nutshell: Modern Family Guy

corned beef hashtag

patience runs out
just for a quick err
                               and
takes a
            long
time to return

Love me in the FACE.

vitamin D-ficiency

All right. Grab your torches and head back to the cross. ▲

Speak Our Consciences in a Soft, Sharp Whisper

(Previously: Speak of it Only in a Soft, Sharp Whisper (September 2012), and Speak of it in a Soft, Sharp Whisper Some More (August 2013))

Two passing thoughts on the subject of meridian, or "ASMR", before I get to the meat of what's in my mind:

• I have never been terribly keen on describing the feeling of meridian as a "tingle". "Tingle", in my mind, suggests a sort of neutrally extraneous sensation — something like the strongly minty, lingering taste in one's mouth after using a good mouthwash. Meridian, I think, is better described as a euphoric PULSE or spasm. But, I suppose a two-word, four-or-five-syllable phrase is a bit awkward in casual conversation and YouTube comments, isn't it.....

• Although the sensation is more easily triggered on my right side — that is to say, the right side of my back, usually — it tends to be more strongly felt on the left side, once the left ear has heard enough for the sensation to sort of "break through". I guess my left needs to be "primed" a moment before it kicks into full gear. If the "video" to which I've meristurbated (for those who missed it in part two, link above, this original word means "indulged in meridian") has been sufficiently effective, I'll sometimes be unable to fully lean back into my chair without the euphoria in my left mid-lower back asserting itself, a full minute or two after the video has finished. Somehow, my right prefers it quick and immediate; it's yet to linger post-trigger the way it does on the left.

Now, then...

There's a quality, or a trend, I've noticed of late in my lonely, after-hours meridian pursuits, and it rather ties in with my personal politics, which I've revealed on this blog on a number of occasions. It is this: the videos that I'm finding provide the strongest and most effective triggers, and therefore the videos I'm pursuing and "favoriting", are the ones that are crystal clear and unfiltered — breaths go directly in the ear, so strongly that I can practically smell the ASMRtist's breath. Also, I can easily hear and know when they are moving from one ear to the other; they're not just staying totally in one place while they deliver a line or two.

Summarily: The videos that best simulate an actual person being with me, the viewer/listener, are the best.

Try this one on for sighs (sic). (Embedding disabled by request: Air Light - Inaudible, unintelligible binaural whisper 3D)

Despite the Zappa-esque artistic style where different recorded bits are repeated and overdubbed throughout the piece (Zappa's "Freak Out" especially comes to mind on the grounds that I get meridian off "It Can't Happen Here", which has an up-close backup vocal in the right channel; "No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no, man you guys are gonna be SAFE, everything's COOL."), it is delightfully obvious that the recordings are done by an actual human being. (Not that some ASMRtists aren't human, mind you.) She audibly moves from directly in one ear, to more the back of the neck, closer back to the ear, then to the other ear, and so on. I smell her breath at certain junctures with P and K sounds; as poorly as our language puts names to scents, her breath is simply authentically human — not wholly foul, nor quite the aroma of a good meal freshly prepared in the kitchen — just simply human. Perhaps I remember the smell from somewhere in my past — a casual, unmemorable encounter in my far too numerous days of academia wherein I was in enough distance of a young girl speaking to catch a whiff. It's lively. And real. The combination of humanity, artistic endeavor, and, of course, super-effective meridian triggers, make this quite probably my all-time favorite "merideo" (ASMR video).

And so my political side flares up. Where are all the people in my life who would be willing to speak to me so intimately and closely? Our culture doesn't quite encourage that, does it? Occasionally, somewhat rarely, I feel meridian wholly by accident when being spoken to normally from about arm's length, as happened while I was receiving instruction on working with produce on the opening day of the discount grocery at which I'm working for about three more weeks until I move to greater Nashville. How did I manage to feel meridian in a joyous, happening atmosphere like that of a store's grand opening? I don't know. But, anomalies like that aside, nobody's exactly going out of their way to be in an intimate setting and tone with me, are they? And it's totally weird and un-American to sort of "nudge" anyone in that direction. Ideal meridian conditions do tend to lean toward the same kind of conditions that are often reserved for romantic endeavors — two people otherwise alone, in a close, quiet space. If I've ever been part of anyone's romantic endeavors, they have failed to tell me about it in all my nearly twenty-eight earth years.

I'm reminded all over again of how I'm completely alone and how our society seems to encourage that kind of thing. Get a steady job sitting at a desk all day. Drive to and from that job — the lone occupant in your vehicle. Squabble with your spouse, kids and parents at home; your connection is purely biological. Modern western culture, with all its endless flavors, passing technology and varieties, has pretty much fragmented us as people. We see too many differences between each of us for us to overcome them, and we don't make good connections anymore. At best, I get generally friendly people giving generally friendly greetings and offers on which they'll never follow through. We're just going through the motions, cogs in the machine, our teeth slowly eroding.

I wonder about the lives of the ASMRtists. The ASMRtist ranks are pretty well dominated by women — just an occasional male along the way — making videos in their own rooms or studios, with only themselves in them. What kind of families do they have? Are they romantically involved with anyone? They most all seem like they could easily sway a mate or two from the crowd, such kindly faces with sweet, soft voices. Do they often get to experience an actual live-action trigger from a human being in the same room? Will I get to meet anybody like this? ASMRtists are spread all over the globe. Air Light, who undoubtedly knows and understands the basic mechanics of meridian, is......Ukrainian, I believe....? I follow people in Russia, Deutschland, the UK, Australia, and probably some Americans, although that doesn't exactly narrow anything down. Is anyone near Nashville? Meet for a malt at Mike's some time?

I'm a lonely meridiot—
fringe and unfocused
a random poet
a runaway train
without a platform
a purple square
on a Rubik's Cube
a round peg
on an unstrung guitar
I got a
        way with words
a cat
      burglar
in an open desert
I adapt to survive
but can I live?

Um.......what the hell just happened to me? All right, yeah. So, I think I may attempt to produce a piece of ASMRtwork for YouTube. I may just read this series of blog posts. My microphone is horribly cheap — and naked. Listen for breaths that pierce. And hopefully trigger. (I have, in the past, gotten meridian from my own voice on "Thirst (Ambrosia)". Is this okay?)

Swell Saturday, cyber citizens,
~C.A., from Chicago~

I chirped these separately in the early morning of March 10, save for the opener, new to today

I hear the beating
of dull drums — dem ol' doldrums
beating down on me

Stifled so much that
I want to take my own life
up into my hands

my own tied up hands
my entire tied up mind
suffocating me

suffocating me
my head badly, horribly
crammed senseless with muck

crammed sleepless with muck
symbolically release streams
as words in a form

a forming of words
from the primordial ooze
of wild shapeless thought

shapeless thought emerge
from the haze of this mind state
sleepless thought, converge

And Yet

Concurrently with
all the feminist talk, I
want me some pussy

Minimize

Another poem reliant on its visual layout. The name at the end has been changed to protect me.

Read it.......here.

Public Autoerotica

(This poem depends on its visual layout, which Blogger will not allow. Therefore, it can be viewed on Google Docs....

....here.

Peace.)

Pheromone

I’m gonna be blunt: I need sex.

I’m not the least bit prepared for getting emotionally involved with any one person. And I’m certainly not prepared for any possible consequences. But I’ve been frustrated, and I gotta take it out on someone, preferably in a way that we’ll all enjoy.

Of course, being a child of polite society, I can’t really ask anyone directly. So I’m putting this out here, calling it a poem, and hoping it’ll work.

I’m available.

Sums it Up

Have yourself
the most incredible
awesome
explosive
mind-blowing
out-of-this-world
Orgasm anyone ever had
as you go fuck yourself.

Well-Meaning Male

I sometimes want to
rape these people just to see
their fears justified.