6.8 Goals

by Eric Chaet

War-lords,
controllers of fortunes
however accumulated,
also the poor
with will to survive
or to power—
gather themselves
or gather around
table or fire:

What mission
amidst competing
agendas?
How to achieve?
how discipline selves?
What long strategies & nearer tactical objectives?
What resources can be allocated & deployed,
& how, most effectively?
What opportunities, obstacles, competition?
How to accelerate without triggering insurmountable opposition,
or spending what can’t be replaced in time?

All calculate methodically, or by intuition, or instinct:
alligators & antelopes, mothers & infants,
privileged & sheltered, homeless & desperate,
invalids, fame-seekers, campaigners for clout,
on the make or lam, those behind enemy lines or hunting them,
prisoners & guards, scrup- & unscrupulous,
pass- & dispassionate, clever, or grudgingly soldiering on,
wise & foolish, selfish or farseeing, altruistic,
laborers, farmers, craftsmen, manufacturers:

vision, image, blueprint,
making tools, molds, dies, jigs, the matrix,
plowing & planting, maintaining tractor, fertilizing, keeping books,
seeking, transforming gases, liquids, solids, other people, species,
break down, isolate, cut, breed, train, piece together, seal,
assign responsibilities, rewards, punishments,
crucial finishing touches, nervous sale, harvest, performance:

offense, defense,
first down, first base, score, victory, championship:
survive, win battle, kill or outlast enemy, force surrender:

inventors’ & investors’,
promoters’, executives’, entrepreneurs’ goals,
sane goals all think nuts & really delusional goals,
desperately or joyfully formed,
in confidence emerging from depths,
off-the-rack, respectable wage & mortgage,
food-on-the-table goals of the daunted—
others seem too powerful to resist—
& of the brave starting out or over
after risking & losing, or being robbed
by burglars, or well-intentioned or corrupt public servants,
or ruthless or simply uncomprehendingly arrogant invaders—
or heirs of those so robbed:
bitter, sour, paralyzed by rage, desiring only vengeance—
or managing somehow to rise above, beyond, thru
the insane rhetoric of both perpetrators & victims,
& heirs of perpetrators & victims,
able to start, & learn, & create something good
whoever acknowledges it or not:

sales, financial, efficiency, political, scientific, artistic goals,
gloriously achieved after long perseverance,
winning trivial games, attention, adulation,
making more & more & more money,
sex, freedom to act, safety, independence, relief,
food, respect, justice, love, cash to feed addiction,
a meaningful career, class or diamond ring,
long-sought, never-yet-accomplished goals,
goals lasting an instant, or never yet conceived.

The probability of achieving the set of outcomes I aim to achieve,
is so small, it’s not even a factor in others’ calculations—
that’s an obstacle, but maybe I can use it to advantage:
but the value of such an achievement is so great
that I pit my vitality, which I hoard & cultivate,
& my ever-pruned, invested-in, sorting & sorted
understanding of the world & of myself—
& my little kit of skills, & ability & willingness to learn—
against tyrannies, inertias, & the law of large numbers.

I shuffle the deck of goals, & struggle to imagine
the world about to be & what I hope to do in it—
& the world beyond the world about to be
(result of all that is, & all that has been & will be done—
including what I am about to do)
&—from what I hope to be, do, have—
step by step, backward to here & now—
I lay, scarcely believing, a prospective path (each step dependent),
the soundest foundation I know how to build—
& putting the employee (I’m the employee) to work,
&, holding my breath an instant,
I move beyond.

Adjusting my understanding & expectations—
as I must in response to whatever unanticipated I encounter,
each understanding based as it is on incomplete information—
leaving behind maybe mistaken, anyway no longer functioning
expectations that always were or have become obstacles—
I persevere—oh, far from perfectly steadfast!
&, when I recollect myself at the center of my & others’ schemes,
resting, taking wholesome, grateful nourishment, wonder, & delight—
toward what I hope, intend, & am willing to struggle sufficiently,
to realize—maybe.

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Picture: di Suvero