Hmmm . . .

Alright, Sir, I shall respond

To your civilized query.

I shall tell you what I do well

With skill and regularity,

And to my response

I demand  -

Demand:

No reaction of hilarity.

What I do well, Sir,

Well, Sir . . .

I fumfer.

 

Fumfer?

To fumfer is to let things go by.

To level sounds (laugh equals a cry).

To fumfer is to read about the sky,

To deny touching truths and thereby lie.

In other words:

To use the past to neutralize the present and what future?

 

Fumfer.

Have fumfed, fumf, and I fear, shall fumf.

And in my fumfing,

In this institutionalized inactivity:

I drain my blood,

Miss my boat,

And abuse my Time.

Rendering all that is mine to know of heaven

Into a safe and grey and living hell.

 

And, Sir, before you turn

To covertly smile,

Let me say - 

Are you not bound

To fumfer away 

Your day,

Too?

  

 

                                                                                              - Jeffrey Eisenmesser, 1983