Monday, October 19, 2009

The Fool Was Right All Along


The Bearded Madman thinks to himself
& stares with apologetic regret
atop a melting hill
among the poor waterfalls of ice
the ice caps
the ice cracks
the water cracks
below him.
He never made the mistake of young love
for life is a career, after all
and death is a profession
that never goes out of style.
The heat rises from
industrial toaster ovens
blurring out images
of cell phone ads behind.
The loud downtown voices
of the hundreds below
eventually become a blur
a low hum
and just like the way everyone ages
everyone begins to look the same
climbing stone marble staircases
among the other morally ambiguous
into their safe haven.
The Bearded Madman hears the buzzing of a cellphone
vibrate mode
shaking across the floor
looking for a home.
He is catatonic
among the meaningless
and then it occurs
to his optimistic mind
that he too is meaningless.
He watches below
as they rape and celebritize these murderers of innocence
and scandalize the most brainless of targets,
don't tell him tis' not the truth.
Point form ideals of life
sociological norms
reality's oh so accepting eyes
-> more like constipated diarrhea out of the throats
of the long tied businessman or politician
choking his own circulation
'round his neck
along with the flow of air to his brain.
When the smile is is bright
and false
laughing in the eyes of his peers
watch carefully,
as it slowly slowly slowly fades from the face
sliding back to the miserable irony
of choosing his fate.
Watch this one day,
the transition. of smile to reality,
the slowing fade.
the closing curtains.
Burn,
burn,
burn.
Yet,
the Madman tempts not to be politically incorrect...
though who is he kidding?
We are all the cannibals of the Earth's body
& we are all the hungry wolves.

4 comments:

Jessica said...

This has a surreal feel to it which I quite like. And there are a lot of lines that I quite like, which, as I'm re-reading the poem now, I'm realizing that I pretty much just like the whole thing.

Because it's got that surreal feeling, there's not really a way to say that anything doesn't fit, yet I somehow feel as though the poem is about social ills and the last couplet is...not. But I like the affect that that achieves, broadening the scope of the poem to everything that's wrong with humanity. In brief: I am torn about the last couplet.

Chasch said...

Me like.
Head too full of school things to comment more skillfully, criticize, and give positive feedback.
Can only express appreciation.

Emlyn said...

I also wish to express appreciation, I'm not sure about the second to last couplet, but I like the last one...

tabs said...

JSMC

It's dark and...detached, if that makes any sense. Usually I find your work really gets under the skin in an emotional sense but this one is really...scraping the surface there. I like it.
You should write something happy, Jordano! Something really, really really happy. No angst whatsoever.