Messy Hickeys

Silly shitty poetry writers and garagebound songsmiths write too often of the moon and her phases. It's been spoken of as if she was a watchface that requires pondering. Rubbernecking the heavens leaves only messy hickeys. They write of broken hearts and escaped loves when they should be writing about spider thoughts and the threads of sinew that hold together a slice of pastrami. Why pastrami? Because it's there! They wail about war and injustice when the actualities of existence are sidewalk cracks and offered elbows, broken shards of glass and the dying sum of old sun-powered calculators, band-aid residue and dryer lint, shipwreck survivors and easygone newspaper ink. Power, money, women; what king or pharoah wasn't lustful? Or entitled? And which of them grasped at their golden threads at the moment of death? When a crude peasant's crude spear rightfully pierced a gilded artery and delivered the exclamation point such an absurd life needed in order to die proper. And didn't that peasant smile at the sight of the steaming blood just like his own? Isn't life just about having a soft pillow to place behind one's back, whether after a hard day of slaving or long day of pharoahing? People write of what shakes their windows. They either peer through them into the outside and imagine the ingress the shadows are intent on making or they gather piles of piss and mercy that must be withheld by the silicone sheets that glow yellow against the evening's sleepy eyes. Menu's are browsed with determination and vigor, as they should be, because food is often the best part of a person's day. I've posited that the most common story ever told is that of wasted potential, but I'd put forth that such a notion is rivaled by the universality of a good meal. We are fish. When we eat we are happiest. We are lizards. When we do not understand we fear. We are apes. When necessary, often when not, we beat our chest. We are humans. When we love we forgive. When we understand we stop hating. We care and we create. And we wallow in our own greatness. As we should. For who else is there to pat us on the back?