№ 879: Really?

EREWHON (June 15) —

What if it’s already over?

What if we’re already dead?

What if reality’s all an illusion

and never happened instead

of happening here, in the now,

wherever that happens to be,

what if, in fact, everything's fiction,

a make-believe story, not actuality?

What if all you thought ever happened

happened in somebody's head?

What if you are a throwaway character

in a short story composed for a course 

taught by an alcoholic failed writer

(whose unfaithful spouse just filed for divorce)

at a for-profit college named for Betsy DeVos?

What if, in a world falling to tatters,

those were facts? Would it change matters

if the foregoing was what was real

and not Donnie's foul and floundering “deal”?

№ 606: Get Real

IMAGINE, May 29

Given a choice, we ignore fact and pick fiction to an excessive extent.

That people prefer James Bond to George Smiley is not an accident.

Granted, of course, neither James nor George actually ever existed.

The point that I'd make: our preference for fake means reality is always resisted.

№ 341: Bye-bye The Numbers?

What if two plus two

does not equal seven?

What if it's two-and-a-half?

What if
our words and our symbols

are only there for a laugh?

If reality's really merely a game,

does anything change 

when you change its name?

So, though it proves

a pure waste of time:

count, “1, 2, 3, 7, 

5, 6, 4, 8, 9.”

No. CXXVII: My Favorite Alternative Facts

(with further apologies to Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II)

Climate is cooling and Putin's a real pal.
I'm irresistible to any real gal.
There's something about me that always attracts.
These are my favorite alternative facts.

People like tawdry and golden and gaudy.
Melania loves it when I talk naughty.
I'm adored and respected by all "the blacks".
These are some other alternative facts.

My beauty pageants welcomed me backstage.
If you hear different, that is an outrage.
Bob Mueller can't look at my income tax.
These are still more alternative facts.

When the Times writes, I tweet "Relax!"
and I add, “So sad.”
I simply retweet these alternative facts
and then I don't feel so bad.