Normal
Feb 12 2008


Loose talk about the “new” normal,
as if there ever was an old one.

I tried to be normal
once,
the adolescent I barely remember
so desperate to be accepted.
And I suppose I’ll be normal when I’m dead
— a well-behaved corpse laid-out in my best,
a smorgasbord for tiny insects.

All families are exceptional
if not embarrassing
to their inmates,
but they circle ‘round defensively
smiling-out at the world.
Which is how the rest of us get fooled;
convinced of our difference,
blushing in its 1000 watt glare.

But I no longer care for conformity,
and ordinary is just a bore.
I like fierce women
with wild hats and wacky hand-bags.
And distracted men
in bow-ties with polka-dots,
sporting black knees-socks in tattered sandals.
And teenage girls
who hear music in their heads,
and dance in mystic trances with their eyes shut.
And pubescent boys
who aren’t afraid of poetry.

The old either get set in their ways
or find the freedom to say “the hell with it”;
so the less time left
the more eccentric they become.
The trick is, to be comfortable in your own skin
and not give a fig how you’re judged.
It may be normal to fit in,
but when I’m 99 you’ll see me skinny-dip
in a public fountain on a whim,
lucky coins scooped-up by the fistful;
then drip-dry in my wrinkled birthday suit,
flipping the bird
as the minders come running.