Poem for Tuesday

Unnatural Selections: A Meditation upon Witnessing a Bullfrog Fucking a Rock
By Jim Dodge

Amalgam of electric jelly,
constellated neural knots
in the briny binary soup,
as surely as stimulus prods response
brains are made to choose.
And through a major error in pattern recognition
or a significant cognitive fault,
the bullfrogs brain has selected
a two-pound rock
as the object of his rampant affection,
a rock (to my admittedly mammalian eye)
that neither resembles
nor even vaguely suggests
the female of his species.

He does seem to be enjoying himself
in a blunted sort of way,
but since the rock so obviously remains unmoved
one suspects it's not the blending of sweet oblivions
that fuels his persistence,
but a serious kink in a feedback loop--
or perhaps just kinkiness in general.
The less compassionate might even call him
the quintessentially insensitive male.

Assuming a pan-species gender bond
and a common fret,
I advise my amphibious pal,
"Hey, I don't think she's playing hard to get.
That's the literal case you're up against, Jack--
true story, buddy; stone fact.
And I'd be fraternally remiss if I didn't share
my deep and eminently reasonable doubt
that she'll be worn down
however long and spectacular the ardor."

Ignoring my counsel
as completely as he has my presence,
the bullfrog continues his fruitless assault
with that brain-locked commitment to folly
which invariably accompanies
dumb, bug-eyed lust.

But, in fairness,
whose brain hasn't shorted out in a slosh of hormones
or, igniting like a shattered jug of gas,
fireballed into a howling maelstrom
where a rock indeed might seem a port?
One can only conclude
that such impelling concupiscence
serves as a species' life-insurance,
sort of a procreative override
of any decision requiring thought,
thought being notoriously prey to thinking,
and the more one thinks about thinking
the thinkier it gets.
Therefore, though the brain is made to choose,
its very existence ultimately depends
on the generative supremacy of brainless desire--
for with all respect to Monsieur Descartes
you am before you can think you are.
Dirt-drive compulsions riding powerful desires
render any choice moot, along with
reason, morality, taste, manners,
and all those other jars of glitter
we pour on the sticky and raw.

The hard truth is we never chose to choose:
not the brains we use to pick
between competing explanations for our sexual mess
nor these hearts we've burdened with our blunders
in the name of love.
Do whatever we decide we will,
the choice isn't free;
we live at the mercy of more pressing needs.

Thus, urges urgently surging,
we mount a few rocks by mistake.
A bit more embarrassing than most of our foolishness, true--
but so what?
The power of the imperative
coupled with the law of averages
virtually guarantees enough will get it right
to make more brains to be made up
about exactly what steps to take
toward what we think we need to do
on this stony journey between delusion and mirage--
when to move, where to hide our dreams--
a journey where we finally learn
freedom is not a choice
a brain is free to choose.

Fortunately, my warty friend,
the soul is built to cruise.

--------


I still have no cable. It just took me an hour and a half to get through my Friends list. I am very, very, very behind and I know I owe some of you betas and some of you letters and all I can say is that I am very, very sorry.

Here, maybe a Pooh vibrator will make you feel better. I found out about this from and am still howling.

Meanwhile, is my goddess. She took that picture of Sean reading that I posted yesterday and actually put Viggo's Coincidence of Memory in his hand. And then she...SHRIEK...well...oh, just go download this (provided that you are of legal age and will not scream over the RPSlashiness).

Brought to me by , I have no idea whether this is true because I never think of myself as a hobbit and I guess I should have tried harder to be Pippin:


You're a Freak Hobbit! You're way too deep and you
think too much to be a normal hobbit so you're
a freak. Go you!
What Hobbit type are you?
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