The Time of False Dawns*
Sifting through your life
to find the fulcrum,
seeking any space
that’s anechoic,
absent of reverberated
unfortunate undertones,
all your recessive genes
laid out in blots of
running ink
Cease broadcast for war coverage,
never knowing how the famed serial
ended because your limelight,
the only way to remember you by,
is replaced with a deadly missile glow
Give it a green light, make it go
if it’s a saving grace, a guarantee,
a methodical way to leave fingerprints
for us to follow
Each new avenue, smudged and incomplete,
vapor trails and dead ends, esoteric threads,
and decades of indecipherable half-truths
None of this is you, jagged pages,
annotated quotes — other voices
said what you couldn’t and better,
but we always read the commentary
in your caffeine-jonesed lilt
Infected papercuts left battle scars
for the declared coup on your birth sign,
useless charts pinpointing labyrinthine
tunnels to escape through
A blown hole in the sky, break in the TV snow,
ascent of fog
A shining revelation
stumbled upon by the curse of curiosity
We’re going to have to cremate
this collected spilling of
your life’s blood
We’re going
to have to forget this evidence
of peace talks within your pedagogy
It won’t look good on the dust jacket,
but we’ll keep that blurred photo
to emphasize the power of residual effects
*Title from ‘Infinite Jest’ by David Foster Wallace
August, 2019
** Note: Forgive my lack of new longer poems. I’ve been extremely ill, but thankfully I can still manage some micropoems over on my Twitter. I just need to write no matter how badly I’m feeling. Even if it’s just a few sentences in my journal. I usually feel this badly during the summer months but this time around my kidneys have decided to make me miserable during my favorite colder seasons. Such is life. Believe me, I’m glad the summer wasn’t as awful on me physically. Of course, mentally, I’ve been a mess all year but I don’t believe I’m alone in that. I’m hanging in here. Reading a lot. Sleeping even more. The body demands rest.
This poem is one of my favorites. I wrote a few inspired poems after reading ‘Infinite Jest’ & this one has been on my mind lately. I hope you enjoy & that you’re all doing the best you can. ❤
Thistle Thoughts 