#artificiality
there’s a cold, electronic melancholia in the
crevices of lighted rooms, in the imaginations of
giants, in the suffocating, wondrous monochromes of the night
in whispered, blinding, broken, dull,
in relief maps, in cold hands running alongside climactic surfaces,
in small, imposing shadows—in model ships, dying reeds and houseplants,
pieced-together wolves, as close an imitation as can be dared, in stained glass, dusty
aves and books and windows, closed, and closed and closed and warm;
cables, flooring, displaced, obscured, scratched-out names and labels and figures and
facts: beautiful facts, useless facts, cold and impersonal, lively and running,
i remember the small smile, that slight wave of your hand as you passed by, but never quite
left me.
Dec 31, 2017
Dec 31, 2017 at 6:01 PM UTC
Almost all the crap in my life
Is something I’ve done wrong;
Bad decisions I have made
As I stumbled my way along.
When I was an adolescent
I blamed my stuff on others;
My peers, friends and brothers.
I made up stories and finger-pointed.
Soon nobody wanted to trust me,
My social posture became disjointed.
Was it all of them or was it just me?
I taught myself to quickly lie
And to make elaborate excuses.
It’s almost like I had no gift
To live without butt-saving ruses.
Early I learned polite society
Would not say to my face.
That my sense of personal ethics
Had become a huge disgrace.
Folks smiled and said empty words.
None had the care and grace to say
They’d quickly check their watches
If I told them the time of day.
But only for a certain time
Can this kind of crass stupidity
Avoid even my devious vision.
It stole from them and from me.
Sooner or later, even my hard head
Had to want the truth and admit
The book of my life was being read
And my lies were a huge part of it.
Nov 2, 2017
Nov 2, 2017 at 6:54 PM UTC
"i love you" should not be a phrase
thrown around by insincere folk
to describe fake feeling,
to justify an ill-thought decision,
or as a bandage for every problem
when did "i love you" lose its purpose,
its innocence?
i wish "i love you" meant a beginning
i wish it could be independent of artificiality
i wish it still represented a sacred bond between open hearts
so unlike it does these days
i can only dream of hearing someone say it
with passion, with sweetness, with authenticity
as if someone like that even exists
Aug 1, 2016
Aug 1, 2016 at 6:28 PM UTC
Lines drawn.
Erasers
kept tucked in back pockets.
I'm circled. I'm shaded.
Smudged out,
separated.
You'll redraw the floorplan
schematics are changing
and I've
got the handbook.
regulations tossed out windward.
Wearing out
all the reasons for more sensible feelings.
The seasons change fast here,
I'm sure you'll be leaving again.
And you'll go
any place
that the latest squall takes you,
expecting I'm waiting.
But I've got blueprints of my own.
"Go anywhere you choose.
I won't care about the news."
The headline that I'm writing
and I wish that it were true.
So roll me up with the rest
of the shabby, used up trash.
Emptied cups and smoked-out butts.
All that's good has been unwrapped.
I'm cellophane.
Life spans.
Placeholders.
Not even a memory.
It's notched up. It's useless.
Refused
and ablated.
I'll toss out these blueprints.
**** all these schematics.
And you
wrote the last word
scrawled out in constructed language.
Wearing out
every patience for these senseless intentions.
I'm fenced off. You flatter
yourself and you're leaving again.
And I'll go
right back home
to my tiny apartment
where four walls await me.
But I still don't want you to leave...
...'cuz it's easy to believe
that you're beautiful beneath
these buzzy, dimming bar lights,
squinting through this hazy scene.
I've seen
this one before.
I know the script
like the way to my front door.
But, with constructed language,
our meaning will languish.
And I'll fade back to static.
Again.
Apr 12, 2016
Apr 12, 2016 at 12:20 PM UTC
There was a certain depth
To my love for you,
And an artificiality
To everything else.
F.Z.N
Jul 3, 2015
Jul 3, 2015 at 1:57 PM UTC