- Pronoun
- he/him
This is either one of the best poems I have ever written or an incomprehensible mess. You decide.
I sit before a screen and
scroll past endless names
as familiar--too familiar--
but I see gravestones
reflections of a place
that does not exist but
as a concept and a thought
serve as the centre of my emotions
as my mind takes flight
to the east:
first an expanse of fields
neatly cut into patterns
on which checkmates could
play out
then across water, quick as
a flash
and beyond, across white hills
and mountains which once
saw the tread of elephants
onwards: to the East
past dried out lakes of salt
here the lands are foggy
known only from the raised relief
of globes in primary classrooms
but my mind fills in the blanks
sweeping deserts
rolling steppes
raging rivers
windswept mountains
these lands are empty
of all but the clichés of
western life
then I am beyond the rising sun
and my imagination stops
at once I am flung back
to gravestones
in a half-imagined place
I have achieved
circumnavigation of the globe
without the slightest motion
now I sink into the ground
as if the graves were dug
in mythical sand beneath:
glimpses of the machinery
which drives my cognition
it is gears and clockwork
teeth intersect at angles
every angle but the right
and at the core--at the heart--
nothing but blank rust
stands out as if a
redacted name in secret files
do I know the name?
I do, I do
but first to find it
and to shout it out
later, perhaps
later
later there will be time
to visit all the graveyards
for now this must do
this space inside
it is safer this way
outside it does not exist
inside it is made unreal
is it made unreal?
it feels unreal
that will do, for now
but later--
later--
The endless list of names
coalesces:
clarity pierces the cloud
of locusts eating away inside
I sigh--relief?
The wave crashes over me
And the music plays.
I sit before a screen and
scroll past endless names
as familiar--too familiar--
but I see gravestones
reflections of a place
that does not exist but
as a concept and a thought
serve as the centre of my emotions
as my mind takes flight
to the east:
first an expanse of fields
neatly cut into patterns
on which checkmates could
play out
then across water, quick as
a flash
and beyond, across white hills
and mountains which once
saw the tread of elephants
onwards: to the East
past dried out lakes of salt
here the lands are foggy
known only from the raised relief
of globes in primary classrooms
but my mind fills in the blanks
sweeping deserts
rolling steppes
raging rivers
windswept mountains
these lands are empty
of all but the clichés of
western life
then I am beyond the rising sun
and my imagination stops
at once I am flung back
to gravestones
in a half-imagined place
I have achieved
circumnavigation of the globe
without the slightest motion
now I sink into the ground
as if the graves were dug
in mythical sand beneath:
glimpses of the machinery
which drives my cognition
it is gears and clockwork
teeth intersect at angles
every angle but the right
and at the core--at the heart--
nothing but blank rust
stands out as if a
redacted name in secret files
do I know the name?
I do, I do
but first to find it
and to shout it out
later, perhaps
later
later there will be time
to visit all the graveyards
for now this must do
this space inside
it is safer this way
outside it does not exist
inside it is made unreal
is it made unreal?
it feels unreal
that will do, for now
but later--
later--
The endless list of names
coalesces:
clarity pierces the cloud
of locusts eating away inside
I sigh--relief?
The wave crashes over me
And the music plays.