Here’s something I’ve always been interested in,
When you use objects for designs
That have nothing to do with their intended purpose.
It happens all the time
Someone will use a phone book for
His daughter’s booster seat.
Or a shoebox for a photo album.
I have a sociology textbook compensating
For a not-quite-long-enough table leg.
I even use drum stands as microphone stands.
Fuck it, you know. Mic stands are expensive.
Some of these things can be humorous
Like a dildo for a bookend.
Or a dildo for a toothbrush,
or a toothbrush for a dildo.
As a general rule, it’s always funny when a dildo is involved.
Some of these things can be gruesome.
A pool cue used as blunt weapon.
A coat hanger used as a curette.
Sometimes, we use animals.
Horses as vehicles. Dogs as shepherds.
Minks as clothing. Worms as bait.
That one is the cruelest, to me.
Killed in order to aid the killing of
Someone else.
Murder as a means to an end.
We even use the skin and bones of dead animals as a delicious, chewy treat.
We use our loved ones this way, too, sometimes.
We batter and rape them,
We use their shoulders as tissue and their bodies as pillows
We use their skin as heaters.
We even use non-genitalia parts of their body as genitals.
But maybe a thing doesn’t have
Just one intended purpose. Maybe there
Isn’t an intrinsically “correct” method
Of using something.
If you’re happy with using it
For your own purposes, and the thing
Is happy being used in new, non-designed ways,
Why not use it that way?
Maybe the thing stopping my guitar strings
From rattling isn’t a piece of yellow-lined paper
I ripped out of a chemistry notebook at all.
And maybe some of the promo CD’s I’ve been given
Really ARE Frisbees.
And they have just found a new purpose, a better life.
A promotion from the lousy, derivative music
They once contained
to the beautiful artistry of physics,
Soaring across a landscape of infinite purpose.