more tales of ordinary madness


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Saturday
January 12, 2002



b-b-b-b-b-b-b-beatball
Improvising words to the tune of Hey Jude, Sparrow sang,
"I'm tired of Toyota driving Afghanistan around the block."
That seemed a lot truer than anything I've seen in the news
since the (undeclared) "war" began on October 7th, 2001.

we're all in this together.
unfortunately.
driven mad by consciousness--
either that or consciously asleep.
Sparrow showed me his basement apartment--
stout lock, no windows, a smell like the rooms
my mother rented to curious men in my youth.
he says he has a hard time trusting, staying
centered, saying goodbye. he has a hard time.
he makes up songs on the sidewalk
in time to a bouncing basketball,
body beats and breathes, he sings loudly
in an otherwise quiet afternoon street.
(silence will be the death of you and me.)
when he apologizes for being so weird,
i tell him we're all receivers of cosmic energies
which we each re-transmit differently.
does that sound crazy? it made sense to him.
and to me. don't you know civilization
is the superorganism and we're all just cells
in its body, like ants in a colony?
it's the ones who don't fit that appeal to me.
they've had their antennas clipped...
or maybe just grown wings.