Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

If I Were the Perfect Person

If I were a perfect person, I would rise every morning with a smile on my face and purpose in my step. I wouldn't have my morning cigarette and then I would eat a nourishing breakfast with plenty of fiber. No coffee if I were a perfect person.

If I were a perfect person, I would have the perfect job and do it with all my heart because it would be an important job for which I had prepared myself with a 4.0 education.

If I were a perfect person, I would be an aristocrat or at the very least a republican. My only drink would be water and I would eschew even aspirin. My perfect health would need no insurance.

If I were the perfect person, I would have perfect parents and perfect children to which I would be a perfect parent in turn and raise them to be perfect little carbon copies of my perfect self.

If I were the perfect person I would be the perfect friend and have love in my heart for all mankind. My charity would be boundless and prudent. I would perfectly understand and tolerate the imperfections of others.

If I were the perfect person I would have an almost perfect wife. I would play scratch golf and dance like a swan. All my poems would rhyme, my jokes would be funny and inoffensive. My bills would be paid on time.

If I were the perfect person I would exercise regularly to give those around me a perfect example to envy. My religion would be the true one of course and I would say the perfect prayer. Even god would think me perfect.

At night I would lie my head on the perfect pillow, in the perfect bed and before I bored myself to the perfect night's sleep, the dreamless sleep of perfection, I would cut the perfect fart.

Good one. Luther was not gifted with infallability in his teachings and/or writings, but he had that wonderful one-liner: "an anxious ass does not a joyous fart produce." Perfect.

Perfection seems a solid goal for me—
perfection, not asceticism, though.
I long to be a perfect humankind
of love; I’d love to be the kind of hue
that colors streak along a bleaker blank;
and it’s my goal to thank below my rank
the many rungs whose dispensations shrank
away like shattered clay from piggy banks
to privilege me to perfect be, who sank
beneath me willingly to raise me – frankly,
isn’t that what perfect people do,
perfecting blanker bleaks that seekers find
in need of something true? And don’t we know,
perfection just is grace to human be?

Good stuff Clay
"an almost perfect wife"

I use to think it was a crime to rhyme
and I always avoided it and the crime
but after some time I caught the bug
like a drug

I gave into the actual subversive
aspect of not bothering to get rid
of the culprit and let it rhyme
like a drunken mime

even if it seemed too easy
ok so here goes, perfection is a bitch
but, and the more you attempt to
define that word, the more it eludes
and here lies the rub, it's the secret
of all great poets and writers

and at the hub of the world
turns that elusive word
the one that seeks to find art
and finds its self in the fetters
of distorted language, and
lovers do part

lets not even speak of God
but let us speak of the devil
because I think I am of that party
at least when it comes to poetry
or perhaps I can find some pure air
even in the most twisted phraseology
and by turns we become
almost like Shakespeare

ah in a perfect world

ah, but that's marketing, perfect this, that
camera angles and timing, no future in zen
everything is perfect, even the sludge too
they're starting to show more sludge on TV
even the Corporate Mind Meld can bank that
packaged violence, sell it on the pay per view
and ranting revolutionaries are buying

saw a low rider pickup, sky blue, blinding rims
blasting kc and the sunshine band,
"do a little dance, make a little love
get down tonight, get down tonight"

hardly even rhymed
man, that was the beginning of the end
the white funk anesthesia, corporate meld
though that bass line was classic hypnotism
like I never left 1975..

yes, you say
it's easy for me to mock perfection
just takes 3cc's of gas to make a fart
but it's flammable gas
like language and oxygen
volatile mix of idea and illusion

the rhyme is the great mistake of poetry
costs of time and credence
one spasm of inspiration
ended with a sound

like a fox I go to ground
no one would suspect the rabbit hole
filled with poets taking pot-shots
at the sublime
the fractured pods
like grenades
explosive fruit of farts

(I would take you all or in parts)
the word is naught
but for dialogue
how we speak
the patois of true be doors
no exceptions, just thank you

Lightning Rod wrote:but it's flammable gas
like language and oxygen
volatile mix of idea and illusion

rhyme has its place,
and those who go to war
are up against the rhyme
you see how it plays out
only so much time

poets taking pot-shots
at the sublime, the fractured pods
like grenades, explosive fruit of farts
(I would take you all or in parts)

hence the economy
nice to meet you there,
I may be forced to kill you
if the economy dictates
sorry, no hard feelings
you got rhymes
you got verse

mnaz wrote:you got rhymes
you got verse

you got blessings
who got curse?

The speaking’s not a privilege;
it’s privileged, being heard—
perfection’s not in rhyme or lack,
but one completed word
that passes in relationship
from voice through word by breath—
on signal’s hands, on paper’s pens,
on canvas’ brush, on camera’s lens—
through each short day fore death
in good relationship,
in true companionship,
that doesn’t give a rip who cares
for strict formality or airs
of freer verses’ flow;
perfection’s in the archer’s bow
that points away from game
like something flimsy, almost false,
and perfect all the same.

wow, that was a a strange ride...
musta been some hard rap
rhyme seepin' through
or somethin'...

it's difficult... damn near impossible, maybe plainly impossible to attain perfection in our lives... but we are perfectly hu'man in our futile attempts in doing so.

The Japanese thinkers of long ago realized what they call 'wabi sabi', "nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect," despite the Buddhist ideal that everything is perfect as it is, both of which are perfectly stated for a perfectly imperfect conversation.