There is this gray place
That cannot shape in my mind.
That I cannot reconcile.
Otherworldly and liminal
In some refracted prison yard.
Contained in a place dissimilar to myself
The echoes of some alternative that never come to pass
in the march of ineffable progress
that feels like watching a tank burst into a million flaming pieces
Over and over and over again.
there—
in the audacity of it—
The snarl of machinery, the cries of men, the distant chatter of gunfire
another school, party, shopping trip, street faire— dissolve into chaotic bloodshed.
the gears of war churn like tracks into what feels beyond inevitability
And resolves like a raptor descending upon a meal
as if destiny denies possibility; like it ever had a chance.
It feels gyroscopic, the inertia unto oneself
That man feels immortal in his hubris
until the bones are fractured and the blood hemorrhages
When the cold and the silence grip down
In the nuanced mercilessness of winter
And I cannot make right of it—
the vacant complacence beyond forgiveness
there is a kind of empathy. Emergent like a weed, that never relents: what I feel towards you, a kind of inexorable sympathy that yearns for righteousness
But I am not right. I am shadowy and duplicitous. Honorable like an artillery piece.
Brave like a warhorse. Devoid of decision. Forward without conscience.
II
There is this visage I imagined,
a good-natured ribbing, and things would be whole again.
United in our shared humanity; and through its struggles where we persevere as a whole.
But this is not to be—
That cult lingers like a squawking electronic box fixed to one station, that says anything to generate a peculiar narrative and is never silenced.
...though, aren’t we all bound to screens these days?
Consumed in the minutia, unable to face the reality that bears down oppression and call it love
What empty times these are. Pivotal and worthless in the same stroke. In the way that the last flare sinks into the darkness for adrift refugees upon a sea of their own design.
How I have railed against the storm, as it has washed my family out to sea. And while i thought they would be saved in the calm it was merely the eye—
my connection to them cannot last another deluge, not one brought upon by their selfishness
Framed pettily, like some dissatisfied sheep fumbling away from a fresh shearing.
III
& it fucking sits there—
Like this inconquerable black bird. Like this demon that I cannot exorcise
These belligerent echoes of failure
in spaces that seem both familiar and foreign
I suppose I was the fool
For thinking that the laziness of prejudice
Would subside to better judgement
Sitting like a phantom in the corner of my room
Disquieted and persistent
Resolved to an endless voyeurism that cannot be satiated
Haunting, like impeding violence
Yearning for release
in supernatural tongues
Agonizing over the inherent imperfection of all things