The world is Half Assed. You are Half Assed. I am Half Assed.
The evidence is everywhere,
from the boxes of cedar shingles in my garage that
were scheduled for installation in the year 2000
to
the poorly constructed clothes we buy
to
the ceiling at the fast food restaurant that you
can tell satisfied the new motto of the world,
“Eh…that’s good enough.”
The evidence is everywhere,
from my back porch that has been under construction since 1998
to
everything they make that is designed to fail within
a given time frame so that you must go buy another one.
The evidence is everywhere,
from the unfinished trim work in every room of my house
to
the way you treated your former lover or your son or your
brother or your father or your friend or the way that you
were treated by any one, all or just some of the people I just indicated.
The evidence is everywhere,
from my truck that has needed several cosmetic repairs for
the last four years, all of which remain uncompleted
as the Lovemobile moves toward rust bucketdom
to
the unhelpful, rude, ambivalent, surly
employees of every trade establishment, store,
governmental office or gas station you have ever
had the pleasure of dealing with.
The evidence is everywhere,
from my unpublished, still waiting, may wait forever books
of poetry that were supposed to be finished and printed every year since 1991
to
the poor driving skills of every person on the road who have managed
to turn every other telephone pole or roadside oak tree into a miniature
shrine by wrapping their vehicle around it or forcing an innocent
passerby to wrap their vehicle around it.
The evidence is everywhere
from my messy desk that will
forever and ever and evermore be
a shit shined example of unbridled clerical chaos
to
the wars that rage in perpetuity,
to
the non-violent conflicts that will never get solved,
to
the public works programs that will be outdated the day after they are completed
for five times the estimated cost and
three years after the original completion date passed into dim memory
to
the woman on the street with a shaking paper cup, two pennies and a dime for seed.
The world is Half Assed. You are Half Assed. I am Half Assed.
Half Assed is now as ubiquitous and as elemental as wind, water and fire.
Half Assed will soon be a new food group.
You will need ten servings of Half Assed to get your recommended daily allowance,
but no one ever will.
Half Assed was scheduled to become an alternative fuel by the year 2037.
Until studies determined that you will never get as far as you need to go,
as fast as you need to get there
and
there was a 99.44% chance that you will require roadside assistance.
I would say that Half Assed will soon run for elected office,
but everyone knows that Half Assed has been elected
over and over and over and over again
at the local, state and national level
since long before people even
pondered the possibility
of creating the term
Half Assed.
It used to be that Half Assed got solved by natural selection.
Half Assed animals don’t make it on Darwin’s list.
Half Assed civilizations disappeared beneath sand, jungle and water.
Half Assed leaders used to find themselves at the end of a pike
or pondering what went wrong beneath an onrushing blade.
Half Assed ordinary people got plagued, sacrificed for sport
and religion or slaughtered by Vandal hordes.
The world has never tolerated Half Assed, until now.
Half Assed has become a birth right.
Half Assed is not only tolerated, it is venerated and championed.
People write poetry, plays, scholarly tracts and movies about Half Assed.
People think so much of Half Assed that it will be politically incorrect
to call something or someone Half Assed.
You will have to call it or them Excellence Challenged.
Half Assed has in fact driven excellence into exile.
Half Assed has made excellence the life equivalent of
an individual getting struck by a shooting star.
The world is Half Assed. You are Half Assed. I am Half Assed.
Let’s dance, sing, make merry and pretend we don’t notice.
THE MIND ATTIC 