Soul Searching
EvilToasterElf
Posts: 1,119
When a drunk turns his key
and the engine doesn’t turn over,
I wonder if souls traveling back,
always land in a body. Or are they
simply pulled like asteroids to the earth?
Are they round? Would they skip
across the ponds to the old willow,
that drinks a fat baron’s share of
the water, and litters its fair share
in return?
Would they compress flat onto the
arteries of highways, varicose
across Nevada deserts, sticking
like road kill to the tires of passing
trucks? Again doomed to the
same endless circles.
Maybe it doesn’t matter what happens
to them. The result’s always the same,
we stare at the night sky, it provokes
thoughts of the infinite and our feet
stray from the path.
If so why bother coming back at all?
Unless getting lost was the more sane
of the two options. The ultimate answers
could by nothing but unsatisfying. So do
they still land
in the vast fields of tobacco, or hops,
or marijuana perhaps? Do we take them in,
writing off those imaginative leaps to the buzz?
Are those drunken revelries simply that,
or have we ingested the wrong turns and
failures of meteoric souls?
Who light the fires of lust under our bellies
or the sense of injustice from a life
tragically snuffed, a rock that flares,
hurls itself toward the blue waters
and breaks against the atmosphere.
Like the electric sweat of the sparkplug,
as a drunk drifts harmlessly into sleep.
and the engine doesn’t turn over,
I wonder if souls traveling back,
always land in a body. Or are they
simply pulled like asteroids to the earth?
Are they round? Would they skip
across the ponds to the old willow,
that drinks a fat baron’s share of
the water, and litters its fair share
in return?
Would they compress flat onto the
arteries of highways, varicose
across Nevada deserts, sticking
like road kill to the tires of passing
trucks? Again doomed to the
same endless circles.
Maybe it doesn’t matter what happens
to them. The result’s always the same,
we stare at the night sky, it provokes
thoughts of the infinite and our feet
stray from the path.
If so why bother coming back at all?
Unless getting lost was the more sane
of the two options. The ultimate answers
could by nothing but unsatisfying. So do
they still land
in the vast fields of tobacco, or hops,
or marijuana perhaps? Do we take them in,
writing off those imaginative leaps to the buzz?
Are those drunken revelries simply that,
or have we ingested the wrong turns and
failures of meteoric souls?
Who light the fires of lust under our bellies
or the sense of injustice from a life
tragically snuffed, a rock that flares,
hurls itself toward the blue waters
and breaks against the atmosphere.
Like the electric sweat of the sparkplug,
as a drunk drifts harmlessly into sleep.
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
excellent writting!
~~its better to be hated for who you are than be loved for who you are not~~
F.ZAPPA
All of my drunken musings (back when I had them) were all focused inward. Sometimes the outside would peak in... but it all related to me. Or I wanted it to.
For some reason, I'm reminded of this one... all inward, or related to self... though outside things (the puppets of mundanity... my neighbors) squeak in sometimes.
~~~
Balcony of Truth
(November 8, 2002)
beer sipping
shunts the ill-placed quips
that reference all those hurtful days
before contempt can retaliate
candlelight licks our cheeks
freshly kissed by tears
which shine like fire
through a pinhole
in satin sheets
and a myriad of poetry by
Pearl Jam and Tori
and Pink Floyd and Korn
drift through the air
when we're not
speaking
but instead
silently exploring
what either of us construes
as the universe
we gaze musingly
at the puppets
of mundanity across the stream
and sing the songs
of our days
being smaller
weaker things
ETE
I do not know what you think of my opinion but it matters not...
this is extraordinary work. I bow before you in admiration and deepest respect.
chance is everything. it is what religions were based upon before structured philosophy arose. It is what weathermen base their jobs upon, frequently. It is the one thing from which we can judge that ever elusive word "luck."
it is the thing that, for some reason or another, appears to dictate who lives and who dies. Chance is both savior and aborted time.
inspiring and inspirEDwork. thank you for sharing.
seta
That borders arrogance. :-(
beautifully descriptive and thoughtful
the idea of bouncing and travelling souls won't ever leave my mind now
The poem also flows very nicely and is not forced at all, so the work you put into it has paid off
It's an excellent poem, and even if I'm a lesser poet I hope you will accept these compliments.
I'm actually pulling an all nighter right now to get my portfolio done for the deadline tomorrow so let me pull one or two out and throw em on the thread.
CW 350
Southern Fire
In the middle of an Alabama forest
we needed firewood,
so we bought an axe,
and chopped the fallen oak
until the blisters on our hands bled.
But we are no boyscouts, we used a Wal-Mart
starter log to begin the burning
As the sky darkened the forest closed in on
the small clearing of our campsite,
the fire grew as it ate.
We rose from our chairs only
to poke the loose wood,
sculpting the flame.
Wicked faces appeared in the center
of the fire’s stone enclosure.
I looked up,
to a canopy so thin that the branches pinched the stars.
For four hours we stared into our
creation, unwilling to let it die
but knowing how little it cared who had made it.
When the profits of our axework
were spent, we played tic-tac-toe
in the black and orange embers.
Driving down country route 402
I saw the frame of an old house
black and scarred.
Five brick pillars survived, standing crooked watch
with dark plaster at their peaks,
like fingers through which the burning roof
had fallen like loose sand.
*steps in and reads it once again*
Evil..this poem is pure poetic gold
~~its better to be hated for who you are than be loved for who you are not~~
F.ZAPPA
I was actually just bumping it for this one, but nobody saw it the second time either.
i'd put the blisters on the hands before i made 'em bleed, though... and expand on those wicked faces...(god i love staring into orange & black coal beds)
the thing about it being your creation and caring not? it reminds me of seta's poem about the leaves... have you read it? pretty neat, but I got that same notion reading that... that the schtitt don't care who started it
and... as, imo, with all your work... the last stanza slays me...
you always end these things so well
i've written about wanting to nap in fire... it looks so soft
!
we should toast clouds on sticks in fire pits
and where, praytell, has this creature gone?