Letting myself go

letting myself go
letting myself go out
letting myself go out looking like that
letting myself go out in those clothes

letting myself go
letting myself go on
letting myself go on being interested in things
letting myself be who I am

letting my "self" go
letting my "self" stop judging
letting myself stop hearing what other people say
letting myself stop saying those things, too

letting myself go
letting myself breathe and eat
letting myself drink and feel sun on my skin
letting myself fall in love with me

letting myself go
giving myself all the permission
to take care of myself
setting myself free

letting myself go--leaving myself be
not worrying anymore what others see
let them look, let them stare
I will still be me

Rand

I guess my issue so to speak is with Objectivism, which doesn't match with objective reality as it happens to you and me, because I produce what I do in my downtime for peanuts, but my real nut is what I do for the state, which players hate but appreciate I deliver a service and give a hundred percent and reap benefits which are because of my union, because collectivism is a recognition of the limited condition of the singular entity facing the reality of a combined circumstance of their mortality aligned against a million things that might kill you--that alone should thrill you to the possibilities of finding a plurality that might make you strong, a tribe to which you might as well belong, a system of others who are gonna get your back.




Now you might attack like your uniqueness has a say in how you are going to live today, and your ego might say "No way" in letting others build from what you made up, but in fact history is cumulative, much like math or science, and your defiance in rejecting the desireability of adding to the general pool of knowledge makes you a fool if you think that going Galt is the moochers' fault, blaming people who got no power for what you decide to do is busted and maybe you aren't to be trusted if you assert that, so flip back and try to undo the hurt of thinking you got what you got because you earned it if you don't give back, because then you just burned it and you are the appropriator and instigator, the looter, the moocher, the taker, the hater, like Koch brothers, then we'll fade and play you and make your dollars into Monopoly scrilla by announcing you're putting the thrilla from Wassilla out in the TeaParties or backing Beck--and people with self-respect, will recognize with refreshed eyes that you're stupid. So your dollars won't spend--just pretend, buying up blocks of nothing like Scott Walker or any Fox News Talker.




So I'm saying, recognize the game that the "earners" are playing with clean fingernails and manicured toes and the media flips fresh hoes that congratulate them for doing it to you for free, and wouldn't you at least agree they should pay for that privilege? Or else acknowledge that no man is an island or ever was, and all the civilization that we have is because, we collectivized, we organized, we recognized and we made a prize of understanding one another's human condition--it wasn't a mistake that we made tribes, cities and states, appreciate the pyramids weren't built by any "one" but like any project of mankind were begun by people who recognized things larger than themselves and perhaps all of humanity dwells as representatives of a great collectivism--see--?




There is no place for an Objectivist me--no person is an island, woolly mammoths fed ice age man by collective hands making spears at the ready, and this was greater than than any ideologue today trying to make their way by ugly buildings or fast trains to nowhere because of egos. The situation is where humanity survives, there morality flows, so you recognize your brother, the other and respect how he goes, and like you once were a baby, you recognize maybe the reality is we are all just victims of fate--and we drop the player-hate and accept multiple personalities are altogether acceptable, and all of us are bound to a better future if we want it. And those of us who have seen it might flaunt it--but we'll deal you in if you drop the sin of seeing "selfish" as the basis of reality when the human place is mutuality, empathy, consentuality and progress. And recognize mere profit an abstraction and a regress, magical thinking that doesn't make up for all the complicated things that humanity brings, but dumbs down to a points'system that anyone might reject or lend no respect to once they realize we're all our brothers' keeper.




Which isn't anything you'll find in Rand--she don't play that. And human dignity?

[ TW ] Your statement?

Will I wear these proofs long enough
for you to see I had no intent,
but
my words failed from fear
when he would not go
and I could only mouth them....
(no, no)?

Written on my traitor skin
that held me trembling but still
with pain before I tried to push him off again,

(shocked that this was happening
stunned that this was me)

already started, articulate too late,
my struggle signed in dark ink
from my veins.

My only proof as good as written
in air to testify to the "no"
he didn't hear.

Will a photograph fascimile
be the "no" I want to world to see?
Or is it worth a thousand words
from everyone but me?

Expecting

The day's long past that I've expected less--
I think it's time I expected more.
It may be what my expecting is for--
And I will learn by love to strengthen it.

I am pissed by my expect-less days,
smitten by an expect-less craze,
compromising my loves and hates to fit.
"Procrustian" is what I make of it--
but you could call it cutting my heart out
to spite my place.

I want something better.
I want something made right.
I want change, and more of it, and faster,
and still, I want everyone to feel the change until--

a lot of words get unsaid
and wounds unwound. And hope that was fallen
gets refound. I want starbursts of passionate
adoration for the different and careful
listening for the silenced and the hope
that their voices find a gain,
a verb, a reverb--a DOING!
And that the inscrutable gets a good unscrewing.

I want that thing-a safer place,
a human kindness informed by grace,
A human face enchanted with the beauty
of, say a great, comfortable pair of boots,
and not, for example, a boot stepping on a human face.

I want accountability and respect!
I want personhood, selfhood, privacy, and how!
And still openness, the end to shame, the knowledge
that understanding people will somehow
understand. And not judge until they've walked
not one mile but two--

or three,

or a dozen!

I expect more! I have to, I'm broken for it--
all in, passionately hoping we find Eden again--
and if there's an angel with a sword, guarding the gate--

well, I have a teaspoon.

An angel? A sword?

Whevs. I expected MORE!

(inspired by Shakesville)

It is not yet an Elegy

It is not yet an elegy,
but I can feel the themes gather,
the muse calls, the baleful
light falls across the keys
of my instrument, and I type--
But it isn't yet an elegy.

You live, for one, and I can't,
for another, imagine you gone--
a reality that battles back the
themes of mortality,
skews the dying light
to cast about in a certain corner--

What did we call it?
Memory.

And that was mother of the thought
I had of you, being mortal,
and your mortality,
that it should not be rung as an elegy,
but tragedy,
tragedy--

that flesh is tragic,
that loss is tragic,
that we are all flawed like this, which is tragic,
and most tragic of all--
that something still within you stands
passionate, connected,
full of life--

and also full of dying.
Unthinkable. These two competing strains--
I dare not call it an elegy,
no. This dissonance haunts my
instrument, chastens me,
forbids me to wreathe you in
laurel or flowers, makes me honest--

but doesn't make me accept.
I have knowledge of what you are, alive.
I can not take knowledge of you finished,
yet.

~Jennifer Paviglianiti (12/6/2010)

Protest Song

(It lacks a proper melody, but there is a call and response that actually sets up the rhythm--suitable for marching.)

How long?

(Not long.) 4X

How long will some people be so
self- satisfied,
that they've pushed to keep
other people down?

How long will they keep
holding back the tide?
Do their arms get tired
As they push to keep
other people down?

How long?

(Not long.) 4X

How long will they make it
a source of their pride
That they fought to keep
other people down?

How long will they teach
their children--
that it was right,
pushing other people down?

How long?

(Not long.) 4X

Did they think no one kept track
of they hate that they spread,
and no one kept track
of all their lies?

There's a book where there's written
everything that they've said,
and one day they will need to
recognize--

It has lead to their ruin,
all the hate they were spewing,
as they pushed to keep
other people down.

How long?

(Not long.)

How long?

(Not long.)

Would you fight to keep
other people down?

This video is alright--preface to a poetry slam:

That's smart pride. I like this a lot.