dear norm
i only learned the gravity of
the suspicious things i've been seeing lately
the day michael was pronounced
not guilty and
the president's former chief labor economist
told the newswire the official story was bogus.
i saw the wire print it
once. but, well, you know how important
michael is on the geopolitical stage,
the papers echo and rage for days
while news does not happen
or slips below the fold,
although that one from downing street
has been joined by another
earlier, damning memo.
you see, norm, that day i realized
that i have been hallucinating -- as some
of the swimmers and mathematicians
of college whimsy might say, "balls-
out tripping" -- for at least the last
thirteen hundred and seventy five days
or so, maybe longer. hallucinating
straight up so now i have no idea
what's real, what's right,
what semantic expression corresponds
most accurately to, and what act
most faultless and gracefully fits within,
the world. maybe a magnitude longer.
they put it in our water, norm.
deep seasonal cartesian swells
of information, a reasonable
doubt, a preacher and panic in an uncritical crowd.
the tongues start fast, spread like fire, and
it is easy to do in groups or simulate
in surround sound for viewers at home, when
there are no reasonable men.
i am still hallucinating, i do not know
if it will ever wear off but i
realize now, norm, that you
are no more real than any of the rest
of this undifferentiated sensory data
of questionable provenance. no more
real than evil terraced america haters
bent on fighting a hopeless
battle against freedom, that distressed
damsel with the bic and her naked
blindfolded switchblade sister, justice.
no more real than those avatars
their foes and their whores,
than these words, that i print
on imaginary pages, chronicling the
decline of my mind, all the times
suspicious i have driven past
those damn suspicious signs,
which do not, strictly, exist,
skulking amid imagined terrors
the only fear left,
reports to figmentary you.
there are no "report suspicious activity" signs,
there are no norms, norm, by which
to evaluate what is
real, what is abnormal or suspicious,
it's up to me to judge
the signs, norm, and i know
that i'm hallucinating. hell,
i'm suspicious of gravity, the way things
are, or, as i'm hallucinating, seem to be.
all i'm sure of is the office
of strategic influence whose only announcement
sixty eight score days ago was
that the office of strategic influence would be closed
instead of planting false
stories, manipulating
global information channels per
its stated mission.
i remember that much, or seem to.
a good start,
but i cannot be sure of anything else, norm.
yours, somewhat askew,
...damn, would you believe
i cannot with any authority
even say who i am? call me
"balltripping in d.c."