A poem while Butler thinks of a rebuttal

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While Butler is sweating and thinking hard of an answer to Bagman’s theory that everyone wants to be understood at their core, I will take this opportunity to post an old poem that is somewhat related. Who am I, you might ask? Or you might not. In either case, I am their benefactor, the walking, talking temporary protoplasm that contains these argumentative trains of thought. But that is another story and here is the poem:

Passion and Sensibility

Passion never enters a sensible life

like a file folder slipping smoothly

into a patent leather briefcase.

It erupts from the desk like red dye

flooding through neatly stacked bills

and coffee coming out the nose.

You never vaguely notice passion

sitting primly beside you in the car

checking the grocery store receipts.

She runs the stop light at ninety

and T-bones you, plastering lipstick

all down your front and running off

with your pants.

Passion doesn’t come with resumes,

doesn’t set appointments for interviews.

It shows up at the fish market unannounced

and says “follow me” and you’ve got five seconds

to crucify your whole life or keep slicing salmon steaks.

But sensibility always returns with reinforcements

no more the list of bland equations

that failed it the first time.

Sensibility regroups and counterattacks

with sirens, lawyers, and screaming wives,

affidavits, terminations, rehab programs, family talks

and more damn diseases than you knew existed.

Sometimes sensibility seems to take forever,

while passion rollerblades naked in traffic,

but it recognizes no statute of limitations

and after the closing arguments echo away

with subtle vengeance,

it slips back into the creases in your pants

as smoothly as a coffin lowered