In the barren land today I found a bit o’ bait, I should have squashed it but I laid it to see what may chance upon to find it. The squirrels were too shy and stayed up high jumping limbs a way up over it and the birds though beakish pecked and poked at it, none of them took it. Then along came a man who saw the glam and glitter of it, stopping and thinking himself finding fortune he bent and in his pocket put it. Now if a truth there in the pudding is the proof for finding he took there and then upon himself the charm of bad luck and hard karma for though there was beauty upon the face of it the brutal part was buried beneath the false smiles filled with humor and wit but speaking charming from it’s damned mouth lies were all that was ever coming from it. He loved that barren land bait and put it away tucked it inside a fire proof, pick proof quadruple layered safe never knowing any thing again that required certain proof. For every time he questioned a spectacle he went to his locked box and consulted with his beautiful bait found barren land oracle. It was easier to listen to it than to set and discover the truth.
M Durfee
1/14/12
I like this, how it segues into a kind of stream of consciousness flow toward the end.
ReplyDeletesmiles...so much easier to listen than to the truth...that should probably be the first indication of its true worth...
ReplyDeleteOf course, squirrels were wise enough to avoid getting hooked.
ReplyDelete...Still rheuminating over an old thesis on satire and burlesque.
ReplyDeleteI can't get over being MAD.
Seems the man was a lot like me in my eyeglass factory job.
Gets caught in a centrifuge (a strip from MAD Magazine)?
Makes a spectacle of himself.
I've come lately to truly enjoy these poem-prose paragraphs.
ReplyDeleteThey feel genuine, right out of the mouth, in-the-momemt snapshots.
Dense;
ReplyDeleteBravo.
damn you're good, mark :)
ReplyDeleteHe stopped for a Penny? I hope it was heads up!
ReplyDeletePowerful Bait Mark...I loved this one!
BBB,
J
This had so many things running through my mind, Walking Man. Distraction always seems easier than dealing with reality.
ReplyDeleteMark, as well you know, I am poetically challenged and don't trust myself enough to always comment. We can discuss this "Hooked" thing over coffee! xo
ReplyDeleteYou always make me think, Mark, and this piece was no exception.
ReplyDeletehow many of us follow ossified revelations?
ReplyDeleteAloha from Waikiki
Comfort Spiral
> < } } ( ° >
><}}(°>
I'm with Jodi...?
ReplyDeleteThe point being is that we prefer our opinions given to us by talking heads and some magazine as opposed to being like the birds and squirrels, ignoring what is presented and researching on our own from many different sources before casting an opinion or a hard set, set of beliefs.
ReplyDeleteValues are fluid and change with each indiscretion of the humanity. What may be locked in a box as pertenient today could very well become "Ossified" in the darkness. Hard, brittle and of little value. I may watch a talking head or go to a single book to help me come to a conclusion but fool is the man who takes the word of another as gospel before they put their own hand in the wound from the spear.