I AM NOT THE FLESH THAT ENCASES ME
I
am not the flesh that encases me.
It’s
only in misfortune that the plain visage
Confronting,
offending your offensive ideology of vanity
Surmounts
your fissured glass eye with an edge
That
deceives the heights of your self-imposed “superiority”.
I
am not the flesh that encases me.
If
you dare speak to me, if you dare open
Up
my mumbled mouth, listen, and push aside
The
silent innards, my Table of Contents, chattering teeth
You
may find a challenging
Child
in adult form waiting to be questioned,
Brains
peeked into like light bounding from a key in a lock.
I
am not the flesh that encases me.
Unfortunately,
few will succeed in their quest
To
get past the uninviting features that initially
Greet
them upon sight of me
And
dare find the secret room of my soul
Where
lifetimes of knowledge, passion, ambition
Meets
the eager ear, the frantic heart.
I
am not the flesh that encases me
And
that angers the many gods, the myriad gatekeepers who like to group men
Into
cattle-like terms with a cattle-like mindset
That
only transmits signals from the surface
Ignoring
the worlds of depth, thought, invention within
I
am not the flesh that encases me.
I
am not an easily accessible stereotype.
I
wear my flaws unlike camouflage to scare away
The
herds of the close-minded, to permanently
Shut
the barn doors on my psyche so that
The
animals of insight, creatures of my originality
Don’t
chase down and attack your wounded ideas
Of
the rivers of brilliance crashing like waves
Beyond
the cracked well of my “generic genetics”
In
ravenous packs, brutal blows
For I am not the flesh that encases me.
ALL OF EARTH IS A CHURCH
AND NO ONE WANTS MY RELIGION
All
of Earth is a church
And no one wants my religion.
So,
I strut down the aisles, passing pews
Nervous, confused,
Whitman-like
Singing songs of self
To
a choir of ghosts
With Medusa-like snakes spilling
From
their heads, their mouths;
A tongue, a leaf,
A pen, a sheaf
Of
paper–
A razor to a wrist
Permanently
scribbling gory bits of insanity
Hurled at a too-sane world
Where indoctrinations, generations
Will
once find themselves
Regressing under critical, doctoral
observation
Falling, falling
For
the same tune, the same dance
That has hypnotized humanity,
Put
it under their spell,
A trance
One
can interpret as heaven or hell
Falling, falling
Once
more into the purgatory, fire,
The preacher, I,
Puts
out another book, weaves another psalm
Hoping the congregation
Will
hear my divine words,
Feel my holy, verbal reverberation
Fueling
their lips, their electric palms
Their eclectic, pre-manufactured
Sensations
Falling, falling
The
ghosts, the snakes
Spill their innards,
Hisses, chained groans,
Words against the screeching floor
And
with a cold shoulder they leave,
Predictably ignore,
My philosophy, my message,
My mortal qualms
Screaming,
“All of Earth is a church.
No one wants your religion anymore.”
Soft
hammer thunk, crack
Shushing
gale force cacophony,
Ocean
camel rushes to fishy desert
Sunflowers
pop red-eyed
Like
blisters, explosive mists
Ooze
with the neck-like droop
Of
the garden nature, man trods
As
the celestial cerebrum whistles
Chalkboard
nails through cracked teeth
And
the white gown matrimony
Of
human and nature unkind
Loses
its ring at the bent knee proposal
The
communion of soil turning to brick,
Brick
returning to shards, glass
Around
which bare feet, souls dance
And
feel nothing, but love is spoken
And
sung about and given an orphaned rose
From
the unholy offspring of said coupling
And
pretty pictures are made to eat this glass
Around
which bare feet, souls dance
And
uncertainty becomes commonplace, certainly
As
bulldozers are brought into the framework
And
the filmmaker behind it all puffs dank
Nicotine
clouds while forcing sense upon the scene
With
words of admiration defying his actions:
The
crunch of leaves underfoot,
The
nickel-scented splat
Of
the cosmos’ head
For
which the galaxy mourns
But
we, stone-faced, go on pretending
The
screech on the crank of progress
Doesn’t
hurt our own.
THE SNARLING BRUTE, THE BLOODTHIRSTY
CREATURE AT MY DOOR
I fear the ghastliness of my own
visage, my unfettered mind
Like
the social media echo chamber Returning
to blind eyes, deaf ears
Only
the snot-nosed monster Of
their own ideals Brutality
packaged as
Delicacy Luminosity Artistry
When
it’s all ugly Dog
droppings run over by a lawn mower By
a kid who only
Wants
paid for his work And didn’t check
his gas or oil before enacting his chore
And
dreams, like we all do, Of
better times
Of
putting the sleeping mask on through his days And
not seeing
The
curtains pulled, which bend backwards the morning light
From
the horrors of the outside world
From
the creatures of the modern day–
The
beasts with fangs and claws and endless wallets at his door
Flaunting
what he will never have:
A
generic beauty Artificial
allure–
Trap we’ve all broken our necks and
backs
Trying to adhere to
When time heartily chuckles at our
actions
And, holding his hefty gut, simply
spits out, “Nah, son”
In retort–
Is
why I am proud of the way the curtains bend the morning light
(Because
I fear what it would expose)
And
the comfy tightness of the sleeping mask
Blurring
my eyes and ears
From
the real world, where my insecurities become wounds stabbed open for sadistic
pleasure
By
strangers when social anxiety becomes its most crippling–
Because
I fear that what I might see
Is
some of me in the snarling brute, the bloodthirsty creature at the door:
The
ghastliness of my own visage, the unfettered mind.
An
amorous yarn unfurls
Into a luminous ball of kerosene
Light,
A woefully misbegotten
Ideal of mo(u)rning,
An overly romantic,
Overly romanticized sunset
Deliberately combusts,
Explodes
As
the sandal-toed feet of the dinosaur
Meets
the western gunslinger
At
low midnight:
The
1950’s B-movie monster
Sinks
her teeth into twenty-something teenagers
At
a daytime drive-in
A
TV set planted amid historic ruins of the cavernous planet, Dystopia,
Where thoughts remain pointed towards the cinder-laden
Eye
of the corralled, flame-snorting bull,
Invention, but remain
The same
In a slumped-over stupor
An
equine cop forgets to feed his hungry human
In a self-made stable of stupidity
And
everything looks ugly
And
everything looks beautiful
And
everything looks bland
And
forgettable as a rose
In
the gardens of sentimentality
In
the pitchy, octave-confused
Notes that rise
Above
the motionless mouths of high-schoolers in love
And
the birds tweet nonsense
From
trees of vanity,
Which
encapsulate, hang,
And
condemn them
To
saying everything
And,
in turn, saying nothing
In the faux musical of modernity,
Masculinity
disguised
In
rocks, bricks, heavy stones
Thoughts
the world doesn’t
Want
to feel the weight of
So,
it points without looking
In
a self-made stable of stupidity
Above
the motionless mouths of nine-year-old adults
Who
tweet self-centered,
Self-aggrandized phrases
About
“growing up”, “financial responsibility”, and other
Self-made
malarky–
Feasts
for the turkey
Thankful
to not have been axed
In
the slasher film of this love story
We
call mundanity
Where
the frantic, frenetic, hyperbole
(A
hyper bully
In
his own right)
Robs
banks of syntax
In a stolen vehicle of insight.
Andrew Buckner is a multi
award-winning filmmaker and screenwriter.
A noted poet, critic, author, actor, and experimental musician, he runs and writes for the review site AWordofDreams.com.
Twitter/X at my handle, Moviesforlife09
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