Sometimes Good, Sometimes Bad

Sometimes Good, Sometimes Bad

we romanticize
everything
from nature
to art
from life or death
based on our particular fears
our wisdom or ignorance
we romanticize
reason or emotion
based on temperament
and romanticize
both past
and the possibility
of a more ideal 
future
guided by
fallible reason 
or emotion
like falling in love
with chrissy
mostly for her big ass and titties
instead of thelma
with her bookish
and nerdy ways
that drive somebody else
as much as
chrissy's ass and titties
drive the other's lust 
but neither arguing
the merit of their choice
relative to himself
cause that's too benign
rather
the value of his choice
relative to
the greater good
of all
for if the choice of chrissy
for her voluptuous tits and ass
seems too shallow
there's plenty more layers
of her character
or her biology
to consider
should you
have the will
and desire
as you should
to thoroughly consider
the reasons
for your own
inferior 
choice

see,
we romanticize our potential
our religions
our tribes
all as being better
than the others'
and in that
romanticize ourselves too
for being wise enough
to make the better choice
which is nothing more
than the same choice
as everyone else
in one way
or another

but we also
deglamorize ourselves
our lowly selves
the thing that unites us
more than religions
and tribes
this unity
of regard
of ourselves
as lowly
in order to
romanticize
what we could be
the necessary devaluation
of what we are
compared to our idealized
romanticized selves

we romanticize it all
just as we
romanticize
romance
by entangling ourselves
investing
emotionally
in what it should be
until we're so committed
when the veil drops
we don't know
how else to live
so we just commit
cause to abandon
leaves us empty handed
so we commit
holding to the hope
that maybe we weren't wrong
and this thing
turned out to be something different
than the ideal
this thing
sometimes good
sometimes bad
might improve
or evolve
into something unexpected
unknown
but at least better
than what it is
now

committed
to the idea
of an idealized love
that if chrissy
with her big ass and titties
wasn't the best choice
then at least
somewhere outside her
with someone else
lies 
the answer
instead of the answer
being found
mostly within
ourselves

we romanticize
reason
and logic
and clear thinking
and clear understanding
as the thing
that will shape
our adolescent selves
into wizened elders
while others
romanticize faith
as the road
to true salvation
for our adolescent selves
with neither clan
considering just how much salvation
we might really
need

but it's all just romanticism
i think
cause we need some illusions
to keep us striving
to give us hope
of something better
better love
better life
better selves
than what we got
maybe it's these illusions
that keep us 
from slitting even more throats
from putting the hemlock
to our lips
when we come to understand
there ought to be more to chrissy
than her voluptuous 
ass and tits
and all the asinine
arguments
justifications
filling in the space
between those
and what she needs to be
to fulfill the illusion
of our idealized
romanticized
loves

so we pretend
that things
more ideal
than what we have
might exist
to give us hope
which we need
to keep on living
keep on loving
imperfectly
and keep on hoping

we need gods
and messiahs
and their messengers
telling us
assuring us
we can be better
more like 
all of them
we can be something
other than we are
we need jesus
the buddha
we need brahma
we need oracles
we need swamis
and l. ron hubbard
we need priests and pastors and monks
and yogis and gurus
we need kierkegaard
and his knight of faith
or infinite resignation
we need heroes
like nietzsche's
beyond-man
we need freud and jung
to kneed out our psyches
into things far more sexy
than they appear
we need them
telling us
of the various pots of gold
at the end of the rainbow
golden potentials of self
or lives in the here and now
or even later
and telling us
even the rainbow
is the embodiment of iris
messenger between gods and men
or the artists
romanticizing it in poetry
song
or painting
otherwise
a rainbow's
just reflections
refractions
and dispersions
of light
through the mist

we romanticize everything
piety
sometimes even depravity
we romanticize
ourselves
religion
and art
as recipes
for making us better
recipes
that rarely make us better
recipes
more like stitches
closing gaping wounds
that don't change us much
just allow us 
to keep on going on
as before
once the hemorrhage abates
the entropy
of the same old thing
which is sometimes good
and sometimes bad
as all things are
good or bad
in their decision making
or indifference
but either way
sometimes good
and sometimes bad
us and our lives
a season mixed 
of equal amounts wins
and losses
perhaps
as it must be
while the hope
of an eventual winning season
which never will be
the promise of a championship cup
within reach of all
in heaven
or in love
here on earth
is that which 
prevents us
from hanging up our cleats
for good

the idealist
and his brother
the romanticist 
will wail
from atop their frosty mountains
that are sadly
for all of us
only mountains
no matter how they present them
in word or form
they will wail
without some ideal
there's no motivation to improve
without it
we devolve
instead of evolve
toward that ideal
neglecting to consider
how all those primates
without ideal conceptions of themselves
seem to do okay
monkeys content to be monkeys
instead of their cousins
the great apes
smarter than the holy man
seeking absolution
committed to faith
and its better ways of being
or
one more fearful than the ape
of living
as he is meant to be
both good and bad
amid temptation
rather than pious
without it

shunning and shaming
what we are
shunning the glamourlessness
of being
sometimes good
sometimes bad
like our god
vengeful in his flood
yet somehow
still perfect
in his vengeance
unlike us
so low
in all our flaws
not permitted to be
anything less than perfect
without shame
by those peddling
the romanticized versions
of what we ought to be

perhaps
we need our illusions
and just as some
function by way
or reason
or primarily 
emotion
so too
we exist
necessarily
within the realm 
of illusions
caught between the extremes
of unattainable clarity
and the lunacy
of abject idealism
and romanticism
existing in the middle
or at the extremes
existing as the madmen
at the precipice
of utter delusion in illusions
or the madmen
existing
beyond most illusions
but that descriptor
as madmen
probably
just romanticism too
so what are we?
if nothing more
than just men
sometimes good
sometimes wise
sometimes bad
sometimes fools?
just men
standing at edges
and middles?
which means
we're just men
i guess