FourthBase's Mea Culpa Thread

[FourthBase]

March 1st, first.
March 2nd, anybody else there?
March 3rd, it'd be nice to have a friend.
I'd feel safer. Much safer.
Not that I don't feel safe.
But, well, numbers help.

March 4th...?

I want a long life.
I'll gladly take another...
42 years?
Yep.

I want to be an old man.
I want to be 84 years old, at least.

[FourthBase]

Wouldn't you just love to see, just once, that episode re-written so that in the end the frog finally dances for people and the poor bastard is vindicated? I know I would. Same goes for all tragedy. Fuck it. FUCK TRAGEDY. Needless tragedy, that is, i.e., anything that isn't about dying of old age. I think the human race has had just about enough of tragic bullshit. "But tragedy is so beautiful!" FUCK BEAUTY, then.

TRUTH: It's all that matters. And: IT'S FUN. It's fun to be true. "It's funny, because it's true." Isn't that the truth?

p.s. I am not suggesting that I myself am The Truth. Fuck no.
I'm just an Antoine Walker trying to bank 4-pointers.
But the Truth IS my teammate, hahahahaha...



Pssst:

We're gonna win.

[FourthBase]

[FourthBase]

I need a relaxing hobby.
I need an escape plan and a safehouse, too, maybe.
I need a prophylactic to protect me from the downpour on the horizon.

Did I post this yet?

"Paul, why do you bother bugging people with this conceited, look-at-me, change-the-world shit on Facebook? Write a fucking book."

Yeah! You're right! I'll write a 1000-page masterpiece that shows people exactly how fucked up we all are and how to begin go about repairing things.

And then no one will actually read the fucking thing, and the vast majority of those who do read it will smugly, boringly misunderstand it. Been there already, read that already. It's called Infinite Jest.

What about poems? Maybe I could be like that hipster in Henry Fool who sets the world on fire with his mysteriously perfect and compelling poems. People love poetry! Just the other day I was grocery-shopping and noticed that there was a sale on Keats and Corso in the poetry section. Nah, of course. Almost nobody gives the slightest shit about poetry unless it's in song form or it's some brain-dead Rupi Kaur rubbish.

At least, for the time being. That may change, if poets start writing poems in the FORMS that were tested by CENTURIES and proven to be ENTERTAINING to actually normal people, not just unbearably pretentious hipsters and academics. NORMAL PEOPLE USED TO READ. Normal people used to MEMORIZE poems, however hard that is to believe today. It's true! Guess what? They like shit that RHYMES. It's an evolutionarily useful mnemonic device, rhyme. It's soothing, it's entrancing, it's moving. Centuries of testimonials to that effect in the form of SALES. I intend to Billy Beane the fuck out of that poetry-market inefficiency.

But since we may be under the gun here in terms of pandemics or civil war or a fluke asteroid or whatever, I don't have the time to NOT do this on Facebook. WE don't have that time. I could do all that official, published writing, sure, why not. Sell out, for cash. And watch the world die? Pass. I'd write books just for fun, but I'll also keep bugging the shit out of everyone here, thanks. It's a written agora. Everybody who's reasonably smart and smartly reasonable should be doing what I'm doing, more or less. Thanks to Facebook's panopticon-ishness, though, I can see that almost NOBODY is. Everyone is too "shy" (nope, that's cowardice!) or too "proud" (too proud of FEELING right to actually BECOME right!) or too "busy" (better be WORTH it!) to engage. Too shy, too proud, too busy. To read, to think, to argue. Ummm...

We are so fucked, christ all-fucking-mighty.

But...are we so fucked that we're un-unfuckable?

Nope. Not yet!

[Cordelia]

^^^

At least, for the time being. That may change, if poets start writing poems in the FORMS that were tested by CENTURIES and proven to be ENTERTAINING to actually normal people, not just unbearably pretentious hipsters and academics.

A different form? Fibonacci Sequence maybe?



There are even websites. http://www.musepiepress.com/fibreview/index.html

If you do submit and rejected, please promise to argue w/the editors in Fib sequence. (Or in Haiku.)

Try,
Strive,
To write
A Fib Verse.


Fibonacci is Fun.

[FourthBase]

LOVE IT.

Thanks, Cordelia!

[Cordelia]

You
Are
Welcome
Using Fib.
Syllable Structure.

(I
Think
Therefore
I'm not sure.)

[FourthBase]

You
Are
Welcome
Using Fib.
Syllable Structure.

(I
Think
Therefore
I'm not sure.)

I have to try that!

That second one is PERRRRRFECT.

[Iamwhomiam]

Hmm...

Perhaps Leon Russell's poetry can better explain?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZycHD29CpM


This Masquerade

Are we really happy with
This lonely game we play?
Looking for the right words to say
Searching but not finding
Understanding anyway
We're lost in this masquerade

Both afraid to say we're just too far away
From being close together from the start
We tried to talk it over
But the words got in the way
We're lost inside this lonely game we play

Thoughts of leaving disappear
Each time I see your eyes
And no matter how hard I try
To understand the reason
Why we carry on this way
We're lost in this masquerade

We tried to talk it over
But the words got in the way
We're lost inside this lonely game we play

Thoughts of leaving disappear
Each time I see your eyes
And no matter how hard I try
To understand the reason
Why we carry on this way
We're lost in a masquerade

We're lost in a masquerade
(And we're lost in a masquerade)

Edited to add: Perhaps I should jazz it up just a bit? Just for a sec,


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgl1hQmjITY

[FourthBase]

Oooh that Benson version is SUBLIME.

Thanks capt'n!

[Cordelia]

You
Are
Welcome
Using Fib.
Syllable Structure.

(I
Think
Therefore
I'm not sure.)

I have to try that!

That second one is PERRRRRFECT.

Thanks--they're generally 'supposed' to be 6 lines, in syllable sequence. I got carried away several years ago (when I was dabbling in poetry) and a relative brought a bottle of mead to share w/Christmas dinner. We (I) pretended to like it. At first.

What

Did

Vikings

Imagine

While swigging their mead?

“Heh, someday this will be bottled!

‘Vikings Blod', our own four thousand year old recipe.

We can drink and watch ourselves on cable television, we, once lusting and hulking.”

Alas, Norse heathens; you pillaged lands and ravaged fair maidens as you thirstily guzzled honeyed brew, strong warriors, now sheep from stinking hooch!

I didn't know how to format above in the 'tree' shape on the page, w/the last word fitting in the last line (and it's been a few years since I counted the syllables, so I may have fibbed by the end).

[FourthBase]

Hot DAMN Cordelia, you can sing!

PM me your email address and I'll send you my first chapbook.

[FourthBase]

Remember this song?

Tires type black
Where the blacktop cracks
Weeds spark through
Dark green enough to be blue
When the mysteries we believe in
Aren't dreamed enough to be true
Some side with the leaves
Some side with the seeds
The treetops nod
The rain applauds
The park grows dark
And the swings all slowly die
But you and I will be undefeated
By agreeing to disagree
No one wins but the thieves
So why side with anything?
The streetlights glow
Comes and goes
When the sun comes back
As we all can plainly see
Embracing the situation
Is our only chance to be free
Oh, I'll side with you
If you side with me

Quibbles: Agreeing to disagree, if that means refusing to argue, isn't going to work. That'll get us all defeated REAL quick. No one "wins" but thieves, but you do have to take a side. The side of the WHOLE TRUTH, which needs to WIN, the real kind. If agreeing to disagreeing means another sense instead, like "Hey, let's all have a Disagreement Party!" or like the gripes of Festivus, but in a more cooperative spirit, then I give it a HUGE thumbs up. Definitely agree about embracing the situation, though...well, unless that means complacency. Embrace it, and at the same time engage with it adversarially in order to make this sad song of a world better. (Encompass, and eclipse!)

p.s. How do you upload a PDF to this board?
Individual blog page still around?
Does it have that function?