Favorite word

Chopin waltz abandoned on music stand

until it is not: I return to it. I wonder why

my fingers feel free playing "Bemsha Swing" but not 

Chopin.  

            If you ask someone their favorite word

they will say love, not their favorite word 

at all (if you ask me) but some pet idea; 

they will never say naif or another

word quirky or fun to pronounce. 

The same with sentences, they will 

offer you a sentence that they endorse

but not one that has an interesting ring to it

like Beckett's "Je dors peu, et le peu que je dors,

je le dors le jour."

                                The idea that

if you could just adopt the proper attitude

toward everything, find not just terminology

but the right tone of voice to say those words,

that would settle things. Tweak your damn verbiage 

and you'll do fine! 

                    A recitation of a poem 

is a musical performance, I read in a book on

Arabic Poetics. If so, what bad musicians you are,

poets and literary critics, actors.  

***

Zen cured my earworm: there are still tunes

rattling around in the rafters, but they aren't

bothersome. Anxiety, too,

is just a normal emotion waxing 

and waning. An anxiety

disorder is just giving too much importance to these

ebbs and flows. Is insomnia just

the fear of insomnia? Nothing in itself?  

The relief at falling asleep can only be felt 

on waking up, refreshed,

if even then: often the waking will be groggy. 

Often, I'll only know I've slept

if I have also dreamt. That is my measuring rod. 

***  

I think of the absurdly detailed instruction manual

for the new water bottle, in several languages. My instruction

would be "fill, drink."  

***

Why does prosaic mean dull? Where does my fear

of "flat" language come from? Why does bacon

sizzle in the pan? 

***

I don't like those little "lyrical moments" but often I have wondered

why bacon sizzles in the pan. What is vibrating, exactly? I understand 

the vibrating drum head, how it moves the air, but not

the bacon, yet it seems dumb to ask.   

                                        I wonder

why I don't like most poetry I read. I wait for packages to arrive,

books I've ordered myself. Many are disappointments,

nobody's fault.

                My observational skills aren't great,

I've noticed. I don't have little epiphany puffs

just sometimes a funny phrase will pop into my head.