YouLoveMe

My notes for the 40th were kind of grim, I glad that I paid homage to Ali, I'm happy to keep on learning from him, The love he taught me outlasts my folly. Thinking about neurodiversity, Led me to travel to see David Oaks, Yes to Mad Pride, mad perversity! He's a gentle warrior who tells good jokes. And then there's the friend I most resemble, Sharing pressured speech, increasing brain swings, Gull-winged friend, at you not God I tremble, Adam, I wish you lived and could 'splain things. My classmates I love you in different ways, Dead and alive you inhabit my days.  

The measurement of grievance is tricky, I wrong you, you wrong me, how to measure, Relative wrong's a problem that's sticky, I propose a metric based on treasure. What are the good things that accrue to you, Compared to the goods that accrue to me, One with less has a moral edge that's true, That balances out, gives equality. Did you hurt me more, or was I the one, Suppose we agree that we're equal now, Given that, our task of measuring's done, The hurt was the same we must needs allow. Moral advantage, a practical edge-- They're equal and opposite, nature's hedge.

We crits grow old, we wear our pants rolled, We think of von Neumann's calculations, That story's been told, that trail is now cold, We need to adjust our aspirations. The mainstream's broader than poker playing, Unthinking nature is in its ambit, More than Mor'iar'ty planning Holmes' slaying, It's bees buzzing in a queenly gambit. Should we fight for the unique human soul, 'Tack links 'tween us and birds, bees, bacter'ia? Or create our own tale of one great whole, Embracing people, atoms, wister'ia? I think that crits should go big or go home, Like our mainstream friends, we should widely              roam.

"Aha!" you say, "I've figured out the trick, I get how to flip anything at all, How all values can be beat with a stick, How what is raised up can be made to fall. S'pose you have unequal gender roles, Sep'rate spheres, with dual forms of          submission, Wombs and cocks--they both exact heavy tolls, But woe to they who fight their condition. In this flip, equality is back on top, Inequality's back on the bottom, But why flip?   Why act to be reason's cop, To bring 'em down, to make life a got 'em?" My 'sponse:  Revolution is very fine, Let's ride the train on its great circle line.

Perhaps you're skeptical about my flip, You note that it questions the collective, Endorses each play'er go'ing on her own trip, Rejects duty, upholds the elective. I hasten to agree with your critique, But at the same time to refine my own, The flaws of self and group are not unique, All symmetry has per'ils that can be shown. It would be good if we could both serve you, But that makes you greedy, me a doormat, So to equality we must be true, Even though we surely suffer for that. I wonder if the game that hurts us most, Is turning us into an equal ghost.

Conventional wisdom blasts defection, And likewise blesses cooperation, But convention invites a rejection, Defection deserves an exaltation. It's always better to cooperate, No matter what the other person does, But mutual defection would be great, You'd gain more joy, more love, more truth,           more buzz. A promise's pow'er may be excessive, Partners may trap themselves in compliance, We may help ourselves by be'ing aggressive, Swapping acquiescence for defiance. The art of flipping is satirical, Morals of models are empirical.

The foolish boys in a game of chicken, They might both be programmed to want to            crash, To die young, to not grow old and sicken, Let's dodge age, let's end in a glor'ious bash! Perhaps the human race is like the boys, We're programmed to have a short duration, To burn out fast with our rage and our joys, Doomed never to reach our maturation.  I feel all right 'bout an entropic fate, It might be that our death will help others, It might be that we are worthy of hate, From our cosmic sisters and brothers. Tonight on the road, I won't turn the wheel, I'll go on straight, no matter how I feel.

Is terrorism invar'iably wrong? Yes.   But in some cases I support it, The life of a tyrant should not be long, A plot to shoot Kim, I wouldn't report it. The time for absolutism's over, All rulers without consent should be killed, Tyrants have no right to life or trover, May they die in pain, bodies with bullets filled. For worse and better, words ignite, inspire, Suppose in P'yongyang, a soldier reads me, And kills his tyrant, as my words require, Then P'yongyang calls, for a tri'al it needs me. Though I'd rather not face a firing squad, I'll stand tri'al, I've done wrong, I'm me, not            God.

After a divorce boom, a divorce bust, For college grads,  conservatism's back, Marrying before children is a must, You get your degree, stay on the right track. Will America become like Sweden, Will my daughter have a child with no spouse, I hope so, I hope she takes a lead in, Creating a new kind of fam'ly house. With Nick, and perhaps Olivia, too, A Philly home with a baby or three, May they make what Tony Kushner wrote true, May my daughter be the change, be set free. I'm fine with an absence of matrimony, For children I'd love a ceremony.

Today is an up day, I rule the world, I'm excited, joyous, know no sorrow, Yesterday I was down, my spirit furled, As it will be, I expect, tomorrow. Of course it's more complicated than that, Today I'll be sad at the memor'ial, Tomorrow I'll coo at my daughter's cat, Be back with my wife, 'joy love uxor'ial. My despair is a gentle perdition, My up days are only hypoman'ia, I'm lucky to have a mild condition, I'm grand'iose, but not King of Alban'ia. High, I love talking, people, and visions, Low, I seek negation, rest, elisions.

Did I have it as a child?   Do I still? "Have" is the wrong word, it's insensitive, But yes, I did and do.  I always will, Under the geeky sign of Mensa live. Maybe it wasn't Aspy's but something else, An ambitious mother, my myop'ia, Coke-bottle lenses were a rum thing, else Perhaps I'd have been in kid utop'ia. What is clearer than etiology, Is that my make-up's mostly worked for me, I was privileged with my psychology, I fit a slot.  Of the norm I was free. As a smart myope was I excluded? Some.   But I see my luck, through eyes           occluded.

My crack-up came in 1986, I was working for the Fried Frank law firm, New York was Hades, the Hudson the Styx, The coffee was poison, sushi raw worm. I had a clear polit'cal anal'sis, Roll back the work system's grinding domain! Fight lib'ral complic'ty and paral'sis! Against our jobs' dominion, let's campaign! So what, I wonder, did I really want, Reading Ilya Somin has made me think, I wanted to foot vote, find a new haunt, Move to Brazil, enjoy a mid-day drink. Must we leave to realize aspirations, Can we find new homes in our own nations?

Lib'rals who want single payer health care, Conservatives who want few'r abortions, Rad'cals who want a more equal wealth share, Marketeers 'gainst income tax distortions. Instead of ranting 'gainst the other side, Build a minority place of your own, Where your vision can securely preside, Where the vision you hold high sets the tone. A velvet divorce would leave you happ'ier, True, making it work is complicated, But morally, forced marriage is crapp'ier, Than new unions based on faiths related.     With your ex you'd share army and nation, With your loves you'd pursue liberation.

For rule to be just, the ruled must consent, So say advocates of democracy, That proposition has my strong assent, But now it suffers from hypocrisy. Consent is doubtful when it's collective, It's realer when it's individual, In backing freedom we're too selective, True choice is not a vote's residual. Maximum feasible freedom of choice, For minorities as well as the crowd, Pick a polity where you can rejoice, That's a system of which we could be proud. Democracy has been liberty's lance, Choiceocracy can help freedom advance.   

Are we Woolf's London of walking dreamers, Impelled by visions of joy and madness, Or are we instead suburban schemers, Heads filled with calculation and sadness. Nowadays Virginia would be on drugs, In her time we were less accountable, We're less stiff upper lip, more prone to hugs, We break down tasks, make them              surmountable. Metcalf Park.  I realize we're in a war, And also at a glorious party, My parents dead, casualties galore, An evening banquet, delicate, hearty. Long-gone Septimus, Peter, Clarissa, We toast to you, with wine and harissa.

A people should govern its own affairs, And should be loth to deny others that, Minority groups deserve their own chairs, To plan and devise their own plot and plat. Local government's a very fine thing, But some groups are always minorities, There's no town where they can elect a king, They depend on 'lightened majorities. We can and should help them to rule             themselves,  With social contracts binding them, not us, Let them create Elfland by taxing elves, Let Faery be born, without any fuss. Are there complexities?  Yes, they abound, But the case for self-rule is surely sound.

Our scrappiness is ineluctable, They rule the world, we're a dot on the map, To them, we're a minor deductible, To us, they're the pow'r, reason's leather strap. Our generosity is elusive, To find it, we must see ourselves as rich, And them as poor rather than delusive, We'll help to strengthen their strap with our         stitch. It is they not us who're unrealistic, They not us who build castles in the air, Let's share with them our vision holistic, Together we'll incarnate beauty bare. And what if they scoff and laugh at our gifts? We'll go back to griping about their grifts.

Contradiction is a possibili'ty, Beneath love's skirts you may always glimpse              hate, Love exists in a state of fragil'ty, It's a thin sheet of ice on which we skate. But contradiction is not foreordained, Beneath love's skin may be more love within, On our wedding day it might not have rained, I might have avoided my date with sin. Love can be true, but not economic, It dies unless opposition can rise, Repulsion's real in its laws atomic, There needs to be suspense, a chance of lies. Of my wealth I don't want to be cheated, Of my love I want to be depleted.