Mere Stupidity

Paul Klee, Fire Clown (1920), National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

“These winds will also plummet your feel-like temps drastically.”—Weather Report

How different might things

have been if I'd been less

an idiot? Not much—

that state's a movable

feast. My anxious doctor

now orders I give up

wine. What poisoned chalice

could alcohol define?

(Not that I even drink

a lot!) And yet, and yet,

of that liking bereft

the unrepentant beast,

cool lines, of syllables

select, might lose what mere

stupidity increased.

Thursday, February 5, 2026