tenuousness

as i age i sometimes feel so tenuous
that the words coming out of my mouth
or out of my fingers
have even more substance than i do.

I wrote the above words late last night after Joyce and I watched a movie. The movie didn't provoke these thoughts. But a song did. We heard it last night as the end credits rolled on the movie "Crazy, Stupid, Love." The movie was fun. I'm not quite sure why they played that song as the end credits rolled. It didn't seem to have very much to do with the movie. But the song, "Tenuousness," stayed with me. I looked it up today and found that it's sung and written by Andrew Bird.

It's one of those songs with lyrics that you could easily brush off as sophomoric bullshit, or neo philosphical claptrap, or well, you know what I mean. The individual words or phrases in isolation seem to be just that kind of crap. (e.g. "Tenuousness/ Less seven comes to three.")

But the whole seems to somehow make a kind of sense. I think. Or at least it feels that way. Bird seems to be as much into the sounds his words make as the meanings they might have. He seems to be having fun with certain words' sounds and with rhymes. The line "So procreate and pay your taxes," which he almost seems to throw away, is a nice and unexpected rhyme with "waxes." It also means something. As does the word "coprophagia." Look it up. If you already know what it means you probably need to consult a psychologist. Just joking.

And I'll bet you've known quite a few people who thanked the heavens for their "elasticity." I know I have. Anyway, give a listen and tell me what you think.

Tenuous at best was all he had to say
when pressed about the rest of it, the world that is
from proto-Sanskrit Minoans to Porto-centric Lisboans
Greek Cypriots and and harbor-sorts who hang around in quotes a lot

Here's where things start getting weird
while chinless men will scratch their beards
and to their minds a sharpened axe
is brushed upon the Uralic syntaxes

Love of hate acts as an axis
Love of hate acts as an axis
First it wanes and then it waxes
So procreate and pay your taxes

Tenuousness
Less seven comes to three
Them, you, us plus eleven thank the heavens for their elasticity
And as for those who live and die for astronomy

When coprophagia was writ

Know when to stand or when to sit
Can't stand to stand can't stand to sit
Now who would want to know this

Click
Click
Click

Who wants to look upon this
Who wants to look upon this
Pray tell

Who wants to look upon this
Who wants to look upon this
Pray tell
Pray tell

Tenuousness
Less seven comes to three
Them, you, us plus eleven comes just shy of infinity
and as for those who live and die from numerology