Byline: Famous Monsters Part 12: A Dozen Damnations

Buford Youthward
stockcap@hotmail.com

I feel for meaning with jagged tentacles of intention and irony.

I get caught up and grapple fugitive material, shoplifting for hooks.

Making decisions about what something means takes cool means and measure. Make your wheel rock the universe. Hit a retailer if it's a beat.

Old heads analogize money with fire. They're both excellent servants but terrible masters. Licking the hand that whips you, I suggest we load our words, our symbols with emotional investment.

Distinguishing between the minimum and maximum amount of meaning and using our chops in service of songs rather than songs in service of chops, we trample on and get rambling.

It's fun trying to make bebop anthems verse nursery rhymes, having it both ways. I don't want to end up pursuing general knowledge for its own ends then end up shady and sardonic. Getting hip to specific knowledge, knowing your shit and your shtick is a good way to keep you astray.

Don't borrow trouble or become governed by one wind then blown by another. A mind focused on moderation is a good start. Square the circle trying not to circle the cries of the invisible for too long.

I try to believe that anger is something unfinished in you, a sore spot that gets rubbed when you encounter something that reminds you of the past. I live in the moment so excuse me for not buying in.

I see you try to clear the past, lose anger, let go. Play with the dignity your instrument demands. The besmirch belies all well-intentioned heroes of transparency deserving of ugly expletives. Next thing you know moral expatriates show.

Screwdriver Saturday, Bloody Mary Sunday, Blue Mondays make all the funny parts slip away. It's hard not to betray the benign masochistic mystic risk taker making way and hay ensuring no mud gets in the way.

Twelve blocks of text taking up so much monitor space. Twenty-four sentences have passed but have they taken?

So much meaning but also a whole lot of nothingness.


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