Jaap's Poem on Today's Propaganda

THE REAL EXCEPTION

Not being yours,
being theirs deserves consideration.
In the end,
they say they'll think about it.

When eyes hunt around a room
for familiars, coordinates
dialate, sounding like the valid words
only fingertips can discern.

Later, when no one is listening,
station by station, even in the dense vocabulary
of somnambulists, there will be that quick
so quick no one will see it:

If truth wasn't scary,
it would be a lie.

II.

When I'm sitting lovely, no. Bathing,
I can call on their faucets of love:
Be Me! Be Me!
Over and over until time is running out.

Disconnected, the standards
stand on their own two feet:
I won't have to say anything.

Careful planning is vital.
No one dies without an era to cling to.
And when the grip slips you hope
to land in a room full of holes.

III.

An advertisement that for dying becomes
dying regardless of its heroes
and packs it up neat
in simple cardboard boxes and bones,
is still dying.

I was almost fooled.

Then came the hips of sunset's hula dances
dying
just to become the hips
of sunset's hula dancers for another day.