Do's And Don'ts

 Don’t turn your back on the ocean. It will toss up a big unexpected wave and shove you to shore or carry you out, out to sea, where you must tread water until a boat or helicopter comes to fetch you.

Do be kind. Be kind to yourself and others.

Don’t be rude. Being rude is just plain stupid. Don’t be stupid. Be stupefied. Stupefaction trumps stupidity. Stupidity is lost among the folds of a sweater. Sitting on the edge of a bed. Surrounded by a universe. And a green suitcase boiling with grasshoppers.

Do magic if illusions fascinate you. Pull rabbits out of hats. Fish words out of your mouth. Long ones. Short ones. Put them in sequence. They will lift the veil over reality and show you the world as it truly is, and which it never is, but if you put enough words together, you’ll have the illusion of discovery, a kettle of fish, an inducement to violence, and a harmonica and sleep.

Do what you want. Do what you need to do. But don’t be harsh. Don’t be cruel. Be cotton. Be emphatic. Be a speed bump and shine. Be prodigal in rumination and alarming in private. Go slow when it is proper to go slow and fast when it is relevant to go fast. Rush the yellow if the traffic is light but don’t linger too long in reflection while waiting for the light to turn green. Pay attention. Wear a badge. Play a guitar. Be dopey. Be soapy. Avoid rhyme. It hurts the design. What design. There’s no design.

Be true to yourself. Know yourself. Forget yourself. Absorption is its own reward. Seclusion is for secret loves. Secretion is for hormones. Be hormonal. Be abnormal. Be a platypus. Plug yourself into a platitude. Go for a bromide if the truth hurts. Assuage your guilt with curios.

Sometimes I can see it and sometimes I can’t. The right thing to do. The right moment to do it. What to do if I don’t do it. What to do if I do it and I want to keep it going. What to do if I can’t do it. What to do if it does me better than I do it. What to do if the doing undoes the undid and a tall man walks forward out of the graveyard and there are bolts in his head and a look of abject disdain in his eyes which are black as obsidian.

The best thing to do when you don’t know what to do is to do nothing.

Be a cloak to the wise. Be a cry in the wilderness. Be analytical. Diacritical. Levitical.

To be or not to be.

Be.

Aghast. Not a ghost.