EVEN A DOG CAN SHAKE HANDS

something tells me I’ve gotta turn my phone back on
for it’s a sure fire fact
that there ain’t nothing on earth noisier than a mobile that’s switched off.
and all the time the world around me accelerates at warp speed
while conversations veer off into the obscure
as I try desperately to embrace the wabi-sabi
and the fact that beauty can be found buried
under the collective rubble of imperfection and impermanence,
while The Disruptors merely keep an eye out
for any underlying change they can take advantage of,
because those Mobius strippers write
about only what they believe the story will be
as opposed to what it actually is.
hey, we knew you were gonna type that,
although don’t be fooled by those passing sound clouds
raining on your parade,
because our memories are made to be totally unreliable,
giving instant imaginative possibilities for a better and brighter future,
or so you’re led to believe…

but not me and my attic full of playful prototypes,
hacking away at the very fabric of life,
because I understand so much better than you
that luxury must become interactive in order to survive,
and that in itself is something special.
real heavy metal.

recently my best friend discovered Jesus in a very big way,
almost Evangelical in her adoration,
and you know what?
the congregation of conservative Christians in the Costa Coffee shop embraced her,
taking her soul to their collective heart,
which got me a ponderin’.
if I were to walk into my local surgery and proclaim loudly
that The Almighty had been speaking to me directly via the Venus Line
the quack behind the counter
would be be signing a script for anti-schizophrenia tablets
quicker than you could say “out of body experience”.

so I sit silently and stare blankly
while my golden girl sits wearing the kind of beaming face and glassy eyes
you see on the people who knock on your door
in order to enquire as to whether you’ve heard the good news today,
while sporting the default look of those who have truly witnessed,
sincerely believing that she is party to miracles
and that her eyes have been opened to a hidden level of reality.

then I ponder upon the fact
that some of the founding fathers of our civilisation
often claimed to hear voices,
felt guided by spirits,
and singled out by the universe,
believing they too had magical abilities which would save the world.
hell, even Socrates,
the founding father of western rationalism,
is said to have had a daemon who gave him orders.

so I sit at the back of the room,
draped in a cloak of insipid invisibility,
arms tightly folded and legs loosely crossed,
and listen while my Honey Bee buzzes around their heads,
filling their minds with the sticky pollen of procrastination,
and all the time I’m thinking to myself.

hey, let’s go out and burn some witches.