Notes on the Human Enigma

Notes on the Human Enigma
by jim benz
I. As a Forethought
In the middle of the night, a pharmacist finds himself standing in a circle of drummers. “If this is not a true brine,” he asks, “why am I holding a pickle?” As if on cue, the explanation capitulates: even the narrator stares blindly into the future.
II. Clearly, discourse is only the unhatched shadow of a wandering eye.
Images of death and decay loom like a circus of meat puppets. Unimpressed, the whore on the corner demures: “There is no real in this reality, but I have seven packets of condoms in my purse, each one dyed a different shade of ambiguity.” She then assumes the form of a thesis, watching closely as her theorist drinks three martinis while writing his treatise in the new fallen snow. “We, as humans beings, have been shoved into a coin slot,” he writes, “Truth is nothing but the butchered remains of a vagrant.”
III. Silently, we ponder the universe with unwashed feet.
Why do class struggles weep for ideology? Must every ridge of the denatured fingerprint be incessantly polished? When you wake up at night, does it seem as if tangled sheets have become the epitome of architectural innovation? Is this why, in an age of binary peat moss, we remain glued to the rituals of appliance?
IV. The mating call of cubic zirconia.
Truly, we are the deep forest that swallows every fashion squeezed from a tubular vortex. Which is not to say a man should howl just because his phallus wiggles like the god of snapping dogs named Caesar. More specifically, if science can replicate the density of diamonds, why do we breed?
III. You observe the despot in the mirror.
This is the way the market giggles: as if naked thighs and social development were open to debate. Tonight, for instance, the pharmacist twirls like a debutante in the spectacle of neckties, yet we, in the role of singular plurality, gather in stadiums and gnash our teeth. Is it any wonder that a hypothetical pot roast will never seriously denounce the reputed reality of our waitress?
II. Anticipating the end of mortality.
This is why, in lieu of sensation, I purge my bowels from a divided pulpit: to fill the brass plate. Even a CEO, unconstrained by popular demand, pickles his freakish children in a jar of currency. Indeed, what I’m saying (to no one in particular) is: nothing changes. Not simulacra, not even the crust of creme broulet.
I. As an Afterthought.
(maybe toothpaste.)