Puerile Remains

Likes oddities.
Into them for a penny, into them for a pound.
Or let’s say for a shilling. Sixpence. Well, twopence.
Whatever odd change they had.
Likes oddities
If they aren’t too odd.
Rather the idea of oddity.
Which is already something revolutionary.

Someone else’s life, if you prefer.
Doesn’t have to join in, doesn’t even
Have to peep, sluggard. Just listens and agrees.

One should agree when listening, all the rest is
Stupid despotism. Pure lack of understanding, I say.
Nodding is the thing.

As in remembrance, cub.

*

When I first heard about these words
Quirks, kinks, oddities, you name them, I
Wasn’t even surprised. I learned about them.

Right, this was aeons ago, but
Let us be clear: I’m not referring to
Squeezing out strategically located blackheads
Nor am I referring to
Any other age-related hang-up, I am
Referring to, say
Being in places, riding busses for instance.

When you ride a bus, when you’re
Properly bus-ridden, cooped up in bus
You seem to indulge in a harmless activity
But that is beforehand, that is, prepossession.
Prepossession is age-related; experience would
Refine it into positive possession. However
Remembrance climbing in withal, it turns out
Nothing less than a regular ordeal, you aren’t alone
You aren’t picking at your own hide, fiddling around
In this life, squeezed inside, like in some gimbal again
Like that I in Brecht’s wheel change, the adult wonders:
Doesn’t like it where he comes from, doesn’t like where
It’s going to, and yet desires the trip to be fast. Doesn’t
Recognize himself, though for more recent reasons.
This mug doesn’t fit him any longer. Disliked his
Mug before but then it was still belonging, for
All its impurities; ever since a squeezed
Blackhead historically located
Until final ejection.
Back again in the ages―encapsulated―
Too many blockheads in busses, you’d mutter
Self-conscious, omnipotent, puerile
Some of them looking rather clean as it is, but
Who cares, picking out a passenger would be
Like whistling in the crowd’s dark.

Could as well grab lethe with crowd. No interest.
I at least do remember the terminal.

Blackheads or pimples, recurrently located.
Bus stop. Stop squeezing them out.
Still ejection. Adolescence never ends.

March 3, 2011