I see a disconnect
Division
Void forming dissension
A tear in the fabric
Of the patchwork that’s existence
Black hole borne
Precision
Light penetrates the distance
Across the universal tunnels
Dug to teach the children
A trenchant misfit
Lifted
High above the syllabuses
Syllabi should you fly
Flags bright with condescension
Almost forgot to
Mention
The purpose for invention
Of life’s whole meaning
Being rebirth, regrowth, and redemption
Wash away the sin
Wash away the pain
Wash away the thoughts
Of drowning in the shame
Slake the harvest’s thirst
Slick the streets and drains
Flood the towns with righteousness
To unite every name
From the clouds you fall
From the gods you came
From the end to the beginning
You form life’s entire frame
Teach me to be humble
Teach me with your grace
Teach me as I kneel in awe
While tears stream down my face
Looking at the world through a handheld screen
While imaginary monsters hover
Over the landscape, their colors vibrant
A little golden, electric rodent
The green, leafy toad with a guileful grin
Some reddish, pyromaniac lizard
The child’s mind dims, spatial awareness dies
With a soft, thoughtless glide of fingertips
Across the illuminated surface
As they toss forth virtual prison orbs
Stained red and white, divided by black bands
Designed to capture and incarcerate
Those which are considered to be wild beasts
Now commodities, property pieces
Trading tokens, pawns in an aimless game
Built from the ground up as misdirection
Guiding feckless youth and adults alike
Toward the blank isles of a fool’s paradise
While all the floor planners and programmers
Unseen hands and eyes of intelligence
Mold reality, studying movements
Through the keyholes of the camera phones
With abundant digital data streams
Profiling the planet’s population
Of boys, girls, men, women, doesn’t matter
The user’s age and sex is trivial
With people devolving to living dead
Vacant faces glued to flashy gadgets
Promoting false senses of unity
Buffering human connection instead
The tap water’s been laced with chemicals
To distract us from the house burning down
Predictably, it’s super effective
The sun has risen
Illuminating us all
My spirit awakes
First coffee at noon
I sit riverside and soon
I sweat my balls off
The last time I cried
I stood alone in a dream
You ran far away
Brain in a deep haze
Wakeful, yet stuck in slumber
I stay fast in bed
Driven to distraction, caught in shouting streets
I wander southbound as my soles slide along this rain-soft cement
While star-crossed lovers paint portraits of indecipherable dissonance.
Promenading past the vacant faces, I find myself
Peeling away the layers that have been building for years,
pulling existence to pieces.
Street lights bounce between shop windows
As I reflect on moments of conduits and chamomile.
In live wire electrics and softly unceasing scents
I find nights to be no different than days.
Each are filled with my every regret.
Each are filled with my every belief.
Each are filled with my every lament.
Each are filled with my every relief.
Go ahead–try to sum up life with data-driven discourse.
(You can’t.)
Then tag everyone and tell them the news.
(You should.)
Bloggers, vloggers, pundits, partisans, PR pap peddlers
(You whores.)
Each and every one of us is going to die.
(You are.)
We all go alone from this world to another.
(You will.)
It’s all the same.
It’s a shell game.
KYLE SLEDGE 