Plainclothes Prophets [Day 14]
I write your name, a mark
on the proverbial chalkboard,
a self-imposed discipline
or
a natural selection, reaction;
a line of chalk erased away
in a cloud of carcinogenic smoke
or
frantic, a fever malaise
hurriedly smeared in passing
cross the sidewalk to the playground;
erasure susurrus,
while I argue with the space
between everything you owe
and conjoined twin cars
holding hands on the beltway.
A response to see
or
not to see,
and that was never the question;
knowing isn’t half the battle,
that's plainclothes prophet speak
reciting the parable
of the prodigal son
or
an asshole.
A burst of light
idealizing Chernobyl,
a nuclear holocaust,
free of fear
or
free of people.
“everything is going to be”
and
“alright”,
so now we know the future?
Pinned to celestial corkboards,
calendars with 'inspiring' quotes
imparted by cats with speech circles
or
are we amateurs suturing black hole features,
a bank heist nose gone sideways and
buckets free of fluid?
To say it's cause and effect
is another way of saying
everything happens for a reason.
Disillusionment is a difficult pill to swallow,
hard to get fulfilled
and harder yet to borrow;
spell the end of bottles
or
the beginning of bottles.
I read your name, a mark
on a granite stepping stone
flowers dying on your hearth,
gentle reminder, we're all alone.
So now we know chalk outlines
and hopscotch boxes know the future,
visited my local diviner,
pleated fingers to steeples;
cards saying I hope I die dreaming,
in my sleep, warm and cozy
or
I hope I die screaming.
RiP, Jordan. not a day goes by that you wouldn't have made the world a better place.
Written for @Uniwhisp's Steemotion show she hosts on The Minnow Support discord channel on Fridays, 8pm UTC - this week featuring anger and the many facets thereof.
also written for free-verse poetry maven @d-pend's revolutionary poetry initiative The 100 Day Poetry Challenge [Advanced Group] undertaken for Steemit School where @d-pend will be hosting a daily poetry show at 6 PM GMT.
@isleofwrite logo design by @PegasusPhysics
header photo base is 'St. Patrick's College's Grave Yard' taken by William Murphy and is CC2.0
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The world is full of beauty and reasons to love and the world if full of horrors and reasons to hate and fear. There is enough of both for your cup to runneth over with either. Alas the horrors can blind one to the beauties. Fear and anger are liars and gluttons. They want all your attention. Beauty and love only invite those who are willing to look. Everything is contagious. Escaping an existential crisis is about knowing where to look.
all things in balance - I think I have found beauty and love in the most extreme places that I never expected to find them, and not because I was looking, but because my whole life has been an active journey to the acceptance of not being found. <3
Thank you so much for the read and kind words
This poem bowled me over @carmalain7
The surreal and unique imagery
really underpins the disillusionment expressed by the poem. Your use of extended metaphor creates a fantastic story board of images
which finally comes round to – ‘erasure susurrus’. Then this imagery continues subtly throughout, creating a thematic tone. really liked it m8 :-)
thank you thank you, Raj, always honored when my scrawlings get a read from a writer I admire, and your writing certainly fits that!
The second line stopped me in my tracks, "on the proverbial chalkboard," what's so arresting about such a line, I hear the other readers ask. Why, it's a metaphor within a metaphor. It's so weird when a poem uses terms such as "figuratively" or "proverbial," I mean, if you wrote "a mark on the chalkboard," it's already be proverbial.
Except poems also paint pictures, so we need to know the narrator is doing this internally, that they mean it as a proverbial, because the narrator and poet are not necessarily one. At least when it comes to imagery.
I'd definitely cut the apostrophes around "inspiring," do you really need to point out that you're using it ironically, in this piece? And if you do, for certain readers, will the piece reach them anyway?
"Erasure susurrus" is a joy of an alliteration, the "A burst of light" stanza was great.
"Buckets free of fluid" is a good metaphor for things without purpose, but "free of fluid" rather than "empty buckets," meaning that escaping our intended role, our intended use is freedom. There's a song in Hebrew where the most important line is, "Because to be free is to be completely alone." You have to accept giving up your role, your position, for freedom. You have to accept a self-appointed uselessness.
Same idea. This isn't an "or" that means "Either this or that," but rather, "X, or in other words..." And it's important to note much of the piece really is made up of these, not of alternatives.
I find the use of non-sequitur follow-ups to be interested. It's most striking in the "Erasure susurrus" stanza, but I do feel you've over-used the feature in some places, and that you should've made clearer some of the mini-messages. The bigger message is clear, because it was actually not using non-sequiturs, about the folly of listening to those who claim to know, about empty platitudes. So you tied empty platitudes and made the continuation almost zen koan-esque, to show us what nonsense it is.
And that is how the "not of alternatives" makes sense. Each of those two statements means just as much, or nothing at all.
But there are limits to that.
I did like how you called out the prodigal son is an asshole.
Or, how the plainclothes prophet is.
What is this piece, in the end? An ode to mortality, to how we leave nothing behind. To how we lie forgotten.
I love how, I don't know, Amerikan this is. It has such a street flavor, stewed in with some religion and history. Nice stuff man, for real.
Time is medicine for everything existential. Greetings friend.
In many ways, I agree with you, my friend, it's been 6 years now and all things fade.
That said, I also resent time for taking the emotions away from me because it is taking the memories, too.
Thanks for your entry, @carmalain7! One correction - the deadline for the contest is 5pm UTC on Thursday, but the show airs on mspwaves at 8pm UTC on Friday!
updated and linked - thank you!
Choices and consequences... I love, love, love this.
Thank you, @carlamain7
thank you so much, my friend - from a writer whose works I love to read, means much and more
Read it ;)
Please
in the poetry class