“regressing toward the mean”

“For if I try to seize this self

of which I feel sure, if I try to

define and to summarize it,

it is nothing but water

slipping through my fingers.”

—Albert Camus

---

No better a friend and no worse

An enemy than that which seeps

Into the mind, often, out of the log-

Jammed looking glass gulag;—

Aw, the reflected object

Looks to be trying to grapple

With hanging, and is refusing to

Regress toward the mean.

­­

Or not regress toward it.

But only because I’m too dedicated

To building out tangents; too

Content with this seat of nails

On the bus that’s idling beside

Buildings, where everyone is

Working and exhausted and

Struggling and sacrificing;

Leading and following,

Needing and borrowing.  And

Beating the sorrow.

Needing to succeed.

­

Every witness

I’ve ever been is

Tired from all of

The child’s play.

There’s no telling

The next time you’ll

Feel order in these

Moving parts.

­­­

But I will say this—this sad,

Sappy sorrow feels about as

Romantic, and pornographic,

And pitted toward destruction

As I can imagine a meeting

Between Heinrich Himmler

And Joseph Goebbels felt to

Themselves and all of those

Other blood-stained fascists.

Hah.

­

—And abracadabra, a really really

Good glass of Bordeaux.

My Germans invade my French:

Parity is conserved again.

Another drink, drunk.

Au revoir to abstaining.

And succeeding.  Again.

I must’ve learned to love this

Feeling.