Our concerns
and desperate needs
are beyond what your
product or service
can solve
My breeding
and education
are worth less than dust
as you lie sweating
on that deathbed
Your past successes
and throbbing ambition
only re-fuel my
bottomless and desperate
demand for more
We often move and breathe
as a machine
marketing ourselves
to one another
brandishing and polishing
our mastery of this life
Increasingly useful
Maniacally productive
Disgustingly practical
I want
for just a moment to
not seek the angle
not develop the network
not think big (or small)
not promote my strengths
not trust in your abilities
not maximize my yield
not admire your accomplishments
Can we please be out of touch?
A little bit useless?
Offer only
an ear to hear
a hand to hold
an unearned gift
sitting with us
silent and priceless?
“How To”
has become a curse
Just walk with me now
Two broken people
with no confident
answers
And I will try not to
make a damn eternal poem
out of every beer
we drink together
24 responses so far ↓
1 Rong | 25 Sep 2007
Bruce, I absolutely adore that last line. Someday, this side of heaven, I’d love to lift a frothy mug of dark lager and listen to you weave another of these “damn eternal poems”. ;-)
2 archshrk | 25 Sep 2007
“Can we please be out of touch?”
I love that line. Good stuff all around.
3 Zak | 25 Sep 2007
Another great one. As a high school student in suburbia, all I hear all day is how relevant the irrelevant aspects of life are. Great perspective.
4 Jecklin | 25 Sep 2007
The Right to Useful Unemployment: And Its Professional Enemies, by Ivan Illich
5 Jessica Poundstone | 25 Sep 2007
Yes.
6 Robert Bruce | 25 Sep 2007
Rong - I’m in. As long as it’s a Mirror Pond Pale Ale…
7 Robert Bruce | 25 Sep 2007
Jessica - oui.
8 Robert Bruce | 25 Sep 2007
Jeck - I like this reading list you’re building. Man, you close down your site and you start getting back to the important things. Yes?
9 Robert Bruce | 25 Sep 2007
Zak - You are irrelevant, it’s one reason I’ve always liked you.
Man, I can see you now, sitting in that classroom with that grin.
;)
10 Robert Bruce | 25 Sep 2007
arch - That one’s particularly difficult for me…
11 mary ellen | 25 Sep 2007
talk about being an irrelevant high school student…high school in general is irrelevant. man, sitting today in lit class…i taught myself how to french braid my hair. that’s how exciting and relevant it was.
12 Robert Bruce | 25 Sep 2007
mary ellen - You just made me laugh out loud.
13 Jecklin | 26 Sep 2007
Robert, yes!
I became a house divided there for a while.
(a few weeks ago though, I found myself considering nomoretalkingheads.com)
Mary Ellen, I really like what you are doing on your blog.
14 Robert Bruce | 26 Sep 2007
Jeck - OK, you’ve got me interested with that domain… (hopefully, you’ve bought it).
More?
15 Jecklin | 26 Sep 2007
haha…I should buy it, shouldn’t I. Just in case. But I haven’t. I wonder who will?
I’m still too easily tempted by occasional attempts at relevance to risk this kind of thing.
I think it is a cool name, though.
16 Magnus | 26 Sep 2007
Thanks again. I too join the chorus of those wishing to raise a pint of the dark mead with you. How fun would it be to drop this poem in the thousands over the Covey compound, or the Osteen mansion for that matter.
17 Robert Bruce | 26 Sep 2007
Jeck - Ouch. But, agreed.
I’m just waiting for you to make your comeback…
18 Robert Bruce | 26 Sep 2007
Magnus - Oh man, you’re living up to your Norse name with comments like that.
Yes, I’ve been liking Amnesia Brewing’s Desolation IPA lately…
19 Robert Bruce | 27 Sep 2007
One of the things I love about this place is when you folks post your own pomes in the comments.
Here’s one from my friend aslan16 (via email):
Response
It seemed appropriate to craft a poem
out of the shared beer, light and dark.
Not very [strong, long lasting].
We had moved closer to understanding,
knowing a little including those loose parts.
Colliding at a table with noise around,
free to be bad at something.
It was contact after all,
efficient in its way.
The bond built very slowly,
very awkwardly,
very accidentally,
(from our perspective)
not His.
The lie of the Goal.
Productivity.
Organization.
Just bumping together
hoping the good parts
stick
and the detritus falls away.
20 Jessica Doyle | 2 Oct 2007
I love you Mr. Bruce!
“A little bit useless?” Uselessness is creativity.
Jecklin and Robert -
nomoretalkingheads.com = uselessness = brilliant
21 Robert Bruce | 4 Oct 2007
JD - I think Jeck should do it, but he probably won’t. Paper and pen have captured the man and won’t let go. I’m a bit envious actually…
And envious of your simplification plan as well. Great idea, now if I only had the guts to follow suit.
So glad you’re back…
22 jmcgready's misc. universe | 4 Oct 2007
Can we please be out of touch?…
Once again, Robert Bruce knocks it out of the freakin’ park
Robert Bruce | American Poet | The Irrelevance Of Relevance:
Our concerns
and desperate needs
are beyond what your
product or service
can solve
(Via Knife Gun Pen.)
Technorati Tags:
k…
23 Jecklin | 9 Oct 2007
I want to celebrate my faith for no purpose at all.
a quarter for the person who knows who said that. a dollar if you know where.
24 Mantooth | 12 Oct 2007
You raise an interesting question my friend.
But moreover, who are you reading of late?
Contemporary? Hyper-romantic? Naturalistic?
Or the Puritans?
Yours,
Mantooth
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