Is there such a thing as cosmic justice? I don't mean from a theistic perspective (but you can choose that), rather from a deistic or atheistic angle. Do actions matter on an ontological level? If so, don't thoughts and ideas matter too? Or is everything self-referential? Our meaning is meaningful to us alone? I think it's possible to be an atheist and still believe there's an unseen meta-structure to the universe. But the idea of cosmic justice is compelling, isn't it? I think karma is probably bs, but maybe it's real and there's some complex set of rules behind it. After all, some jerks never get their comeuppance. That's a shame. Hell, that's probably the cause of thwarted rage—which as we all know results in violence, thus making a whole new generation of jerks. Maybe there's some cosmic explanation? Play around with the theme, I don't really have an exact notion.
Combat Expiration: 12/13/2010 12am PST
Critique Expiration: 12/14/2010 12am PST
Bonuses/Penalties: +2 if posted by 6pm PST 12/10/2010, +1 if posted by 12am PST 12/11/2010, -1 if posted by 6am 12/13/2010, -2 if posted by 12pm 12/13/2010
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With a belly full of rice and soy sauce
ReplyDeleteI reach for the fortune cookie
Half hoping it will say something crazy
Like my dick with explode like a fragmentation grenade
Of Swedish Fish candy and room temperature lemonade
But I know there isn't enough room on that little fortune cookie paper
For a message that long
Instead the tiny white scroll says something that wrinkles my brow
'Your luck is about to turn around'
I ball the little missive up to the size of a spit wad
Flick it to the far corner of the room
Watch it skip to a stop in a puddle of something
My luck is about to turn around sounds pretty ominous
Considering I just got laid for the first time in three months
That I have sweet job, and all my bills are paid
So it's pretty clear to me that my luck is on the upstroke
But now that's all about to change
Fucking fortune cookie writer
Thinks that just because I'm eating Chinese food
My life could get better
Ad-lib the Soliloquy
ReplyDeleteHalfway through rehearsals,
you throw the pages down,
watching them flutter to the stage,
and stomp on them,
hurling invectives into the darkness
aiming for the director sitting out there
unseen in the third row.
You gripe that this part is beneath you,
that the dialogue is trite and unrealistic,
that the monologues are moronic,
that your character’s actions are baffling,
with motivations you find incomprehensible.
You curse the incompetent hack
who penned such tripe,
forgetting for the moment
that this tired, derivative script
was written entirely
by you.
Gavrilo Princip II [Combatwords Poem, December 11, 2010]
ReplyDeleteI was late to the riot; my housemate detained me.
She needed the rent, said she couldn't support me.
'Later,' I promised, then kissed her and vanished.
At the drop, there was nothing, not even
A note, so I borrowed the pistol
Dealers have stashed in the dumpster
And I biked to the center
Of desperate students
Holding my weapon
Like my vomit,
But royals
Passed me
By.
The headlines are all safely in the back of my mind now
ReplyDeleteResting in the high altitude darkness of the cheap seats
Even if the camera of my attention glides upon them
They will not be seen
When the second plane hit the tower
It raised standing armies of hair
I looked to the cloud of concrete almost praying with anticipation
For a horsemen of the apocalypse to come tearing out
It has been many years, and still no hoof sounds
Just tanks through desert sand and well meaning bumper stickers
The armies of hair, mounted on goosebumps, have left for home
There was nothing more to feed them
Not even rockets from North Korea
Or the most violent riots in recent memory
Could keep them enlisted for a second longer
It was all or nothing
They rose up to be struck down
Not cracked down the center of the head with a police baton
They lived to be consumed
Devoured in the glory of divine retribution
Poetic justice? I’ll be damned,
ReplyDeleteI know I wanted it so bad -
My foes to fall by God’s own hand
To not just be an idle boast
Poetic justice – will I find
it written in a twisted script?
Or will it just be used to bind,
to force me not to jump the rift?
Poetic justice – will it come –
like mist out of the humid air
Or will it strike me from behind
Just as I cross Trafalgar Square?
I never in the least expect
poetic justice to be served
So when I do elect my Gods
I’ll will be fair to all concerned
Poetic justice, good and fair,
I'm sorry, here is your refrain:
If justice is to fill the air
I think there first must be some rain