TED’S SHIRT

This is the plaid shirt that Ted wore.

These are the shoes that went with the plaid shirt that Ted wore.

This is the soap that washed off the dirt that covered the shoes that went with the plaid shirt that Ted wore.

This is the tune so soulful and rich, track five of the album that gave him the blues, on sale at the store that sold me the soap that washed off the dirt that covered the shoes that went with the plaid shirt that Ted wore.

This is the activity condemned by the Pope, practiced in closets and bedrooms and sinks, most often indulged in to nobody’s hurt but awkward to be caught at on somebody’s floor, that takes place to the tune so soulful and rich, track five of the album that gave him the blues, on sale at the store that sold me the soap that washed off the dirt that covered the shoes that went with the plaid shirt that Ted wore.

These are the conflicts that rise from beliefs of Germans and Bushmen and Moslems and Jews, in search of relief from some immortal itch for meaning and mercy and most often hope, who fight with each other over whose truth is whose, and what you should eat, and who heaven is for, in a ceaseless distraction of violence and hurt instead of the activity condemned by the Pope, that’s practiced in closets and bedrooms and sinks, most often indulged in to nobody’s hurt but awkward to be caught at on somebody’s floor, that takes place to the tune so soulful and rich, track five of the album that gave him the blues, on sale at the store that sold me the soap that washed off the dirt that covered the shoes that went with the plaid shirt that Ted wore.

This is the eventual descent into chaos, an entropic excitement of yellows and pinks as the world blows apart from its mantle to core after one or another apocalypse brews and submerges our eden in so many griefs that they can’t be discarded like clothes in a ditch, to leave us at long last standing nude and alert with an open perspective and unlimited scope immune to the fear in control of the pathos, the supermen master race heroes of lore who held on to the fire while protecting the fuse that civilization retained at it brinks as a warning to anyone unwilling to cope with the upswell of conflicts that rise from beliefs of Germans and Bushmen and Moslems and Jews, in search of relief from some immortal itch for meaning and mercy and most often hope, who fight with each other over whose truth is whose, and what you should eat, and who heaven is for, in a ceaseless distraction of violence and hurt instead of the activity condemned by the Pope, that’s practiced in closets and bedrooms and sinks, most often indulged in to nobody’s hurt but awkward to be caught at on somebody’s floor, that takes place to the tune so soulful and rich, track five of the album that gave him the blues, on sale at the store that sold me the soap that washed off the dirt that covered the shoes that went with the plaid shirt that Ted wore.

JD Frey‑‑April 15, 1997