Showing posts with label public noise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label public noise. Show all posts

Monday, October 29, 2012

Bless Meaninglessness

God bless meaningless noise people
make, such as, "I knew I shouldn't have
trusted February" or "the piece that I'm
not seeing is some kind of evaluative
framework" or "How can people not
get that?" The froth of not-meaning's

whipped up into magnificent meringue
sculptures.  I walk among them all day--
the fantastic shapes! I say little in response
Maybe "interesting" or "wow,
really?" or a well placed, "Good grief,
let's hope it turns out all right."

I can pretend to understand just
enough to escape scrutiny. Then
I must come home and rest, maybe
read a detective novel, in which
the world represented coheres
and meaning means. Out there

online, at work, and in the public
sphere, people say and write a
great many things which neither
swing nor mean a thing. God bless
them and that noise.


Hans Ostrom, 2012