Lack Lyric ii
   —Jay MillAr  
 
 
If you squeeze them hard
enough a book by James
Joyce comes out. Do you
have any books about aspirin?
Anything on John Lennon or
about Hitler? I'm looking for
books on how to kill
yourself. Do you have a
fantasy section? Where can I
find books about 'My Soul'?
 
Look at that - how it
hangs there, cool and wistful,
like a hinged bird faced
with wind and chains. I
don't understand. I mean, the
triumph of collective enterprise has
something to do with tiny
marks left on the bones
of grazing animals who have
read the complete works of
  
the Modernists. Doesn't it? Apparently,
the Standardists have not been
met, let alone maintained, and
you must take them out
from under the beaters to
extract their meaning. Fling thyself
a new bunghole and pour
forth the sweet meditation. You
must dig deeply, and if
you dig deep enough you
 
will discover a level of
molecular individualism pure enough to
mock formal socialism. Or, a
rat's ass is a safe
enough place for an ideal
to hide. Your books, I'm
afraid, are worthless, but think
of the countless hours you
wasted gaining knowledge and power
from them. Metaphysical lust is
  
a gift of the mind.
None of your ancestors died
celibate - what makes you so
special? Just thinking about Actualism
makes me want to get
up and announce 'I am
not about to get up.'
And I return to this
state of evocative invisibility. No,
I actually disappear, moron. Completely. 
 
Can't you see? My sense
of Humourism has been thwarted.
I really want to know
what happens to the elderly,
but at the same time
I can wait. Mostly, I
don't want to die. Is that
selfish? Oh well, at least
it's got some fruit in it.
'Hello, I'm looking for a
  
mummy. An Aztec mummy. Have
you got one? No, that
won't do - I had my
heart set on an Aztec mummy.
Goodbye.' I go out to
tinker with my new poetry.
The phone rings again. I
go back in. It's the
Realists. They say I have
three lines to explain the 
 
deep stark harsh terror burrow
in our emotional language version.
Damn those Realists a slow
agonizing life that eventually ends
in rewardless death. We formulated
at a young age this
head for commerce and music,
and now we proudly display
a machine for the addition
of time and space that's
  
always too distracted to write.
What should we do with
the Objectivists pounding on the
back door all day? Violins
and chickens. Bugspray. A cool
stream of ant juice and
yellow cows. I've got them
fenced in amongst the small
yappy dogs. Take a look.
In all seriousness, crystals of
  
wacky align the pathway to
my heart. Deep green lull tombs
for the long gone cheerful
hours of youth that wind
their way toward the linguist
propositioning his love for you.
He says 'stop it with
the little television invasion.' Relax.
It's not as though you
have to move out tomorrow.