On Nuts, and Failing to Write about Them

I couldn't write it.

This was going to be a poem

about my dislike of nuts—

something artistic, full of unexpected words.

Reminisce about something meaningful

(a childhood experience, perhaps),

compare it to nuts,

and in so doing, explain why I hate them.

Poignant.

Original.

But sorry, no go.

Two roads converged in a wood,

and then what, Mr. Frost?

In my case this rant.

Gritty, with a bad taste, yes,

but I just knew I'd say it wrong,

and even little kids know it’s bad to be wrong.

There are right and wrong poems,

right and wrong reasons,

right and wrong paths—

right and wrong everythings.

I know there are.

So do you.

Tell me all about it.

Scare me to death.

The doctor says,

Pop this pill.

Down the hatch it goes.

Yeah, come on in.

It's positively huge and wonderful in here

(or that’s how I'm told it looks on paper).

I would love to elaborate

—really, I would—

but I don't want to hate myself later

for being so god-damned conceited.

Let's just say it's spacious and well appointed.

You know: columns, gargoyles, Epcot Center, superhighways,

Dunkin' Donuts, Macy's, IKEA,

and an impressive library, completely replete

with book after book

upon shelf after shelf,

all neatly organized by Dewey and his decimals.

Supposedly, there's also a little room, with wall-to-wall

buttons, switches, levers, knobs, and view screens,

where, via

cutting-edge fiber optics, and satellites, and supercomputers

(theoretically)

I could control an extensive, high-tech arsenal of

guided missiles, battle tanks, supersonic stealth planes,

and heavy construction equipment that hasn't yet been invented.

It all just sits there, of course, wherever it is—

just like I do.

And there's a place I've never seen

where I'd love to write about pecans.

I know I love out there somewhere;

that'd be the place to start looking.

Maybe take the nearest road until it intersects

with Robert's nutty childhood reverie.

You'd love the hell out of that.

Been searching for years.

So have a seat,

and try your best to enjoy the view.

That would make one of us.

I no longer notice the mundane and understated.

But I can tell you something:

You know all those thoughts and intentions

that you do or don't have

—perhaps now, perhaps later, or maybe just perhaps—

that pertain to your most likely perceptions

of all the goods, bads, rights, wrongs, and stupids,

etc.,

that add up to the sum of what I'm worth to the world?

I can tell you all about those.

Before you think it, or start to, or don't, or will tomorrow,

I feel every serrated thorn on every surly stem

of every rambling vine in your garden of Beaver-Cleaver poison ivy kudzu.

It spreads like an overused cliché,

wraps around my ankles if I stand still too long.

Is it real? I don't even ask.

I just sit here, resigned.

What comfy cushions.

I'll come to the point.

Nuts:

don't like them,

don't know why,

don’t know how to know why,

don’t care to learn how to know,

don’t care to learn how to want to.

And I think I'm onto something here,

because that sounds familiar.

What if this place is just one big walnut metaphor,

shipped in by the bushel and left to run amok?

Maybe I lie here in luxury while nearly-naked women

force me

at gunpoint to savor life's hard-shelled, briefly-crunchy, detestable blandness.

What a well-written hell that would be.

Why can't I write about nuts?

Looks like I just did.

Have you read this far?

Is it trite? Bad writing?

Do you think you understand me

and why my teeth grind at night?

That would be great, and maybe it's even possible,

but

it's always safer to assume

you're packing a sawed-off, some shells,

and a handful of pistachios.