the sieve and the sand

i should have known
that they run you through
a filter every goddamn
day until you taste
pleasant enough to sip
’til you live dead enough
sit.

Pulling out the
scratch-pad
to take notes on a
passing fancy
takes too damn long
to bother with,
despite the fact that
that’s why we’ve got ‘em
any damn way.

But we’ll carry
the thing
everywhere and
whenever we want to
look important or
look too busy to bother or
look like
we know
something
that we don’t

Out it comes.

Sometimes with a
fancy pen too.