Monday, November 17, 2008

Within Grids and Gods

I wrote this last night in my journal while watching a movie about middle American people who lived by a train yard. The more I wrote the more it mattered that I finished it exactly how it deserved to be finished. After I was done I felt like I had made something that I wanted to make. So often I create things without vision or intention, but as soon as I started writing this I knew that it would be what I wanted it to be. And now that it is done I want to share it with you. Since no one really comments on my poems anymore I'll be simply happy knowing that it was shared at all. Enjoy yourselves no matter what.

Within Grids and Gods
11-17-2008
By Kale Iverson

I’m losing track of my America.
I went into the wild north and I want to come back,
To rail yards and symmetry and stones,
And plain and simple ignorant oblivion.
I want the roots of manufacture.
I want to walk amongst right angles.
I want to be swallowed up inside
The soft, moist underbelly of mediocrity.
Because, that is, in fact, where I belong.
That is where I can make a mark
Within grids and gods.

We the young, vibrant alive ones,
We the bohemian and organic children,
We want nature,
And we want the natural.
But only a rare few
Come from such ancient nobility.
The rest of us only venture there,
Periodically, wishing for such momentary pleasures.
We the electronic ones,
The Mario Brothers and Sisters,
We the Casio Kids,
We the ones who plug our Apples in,
When the truth is we want to bite into
The juicy bitter center of it all.

We feel a search inside
For something green and gold,
But we are from something we did not create.
We miss the great plains.
We have Buffalo Bill hearts.
We are adventure inside and eggshell dyed black.
We are iron skillets and chaw.
We are sending smoke signals
From the tops of strip malls.

Our nature is reproduced.
Our habitat is plastic recycled.
And we’re ready to move on
With what we were given.
We will make sashes and slings
From alley way refuse.
The future will make sure of that.
And only when we can play
In the asphalt fields
As if they were meadows of daisies
Will we be granted the freedom
Of those ancient mystics that walked before us.
The ancients that saw the earth as it was
And not as what they could make it.
The ancients that had only moments together before they left.

We are the ones who will inherit this stampede of folly
Trampling and cascading
And frothing at the mouth
As the saber toothed demons of history bear down.
We cannot scatter.
We cannot panic.
We cannot make like the impotence of our fathers
And balk at the truth
In all its naked and pure readiness.

We wish to unite along the next dimension.
We want to align the yellow lines across the highway
With the wormholes of the stars.
We want to believe
That amongst the paper bags and receipts
Of this marvelous distraction
A code for the lighted path exists.
We want to believe that we are different,
That for us it is not just another faded slide
Clicking and clacking by one button press at a time.

We want radiance.
We want love unlike the movies,
And more like our families,
More like our dreams,
More like our hallucinations
And not the ones our parents remember,
But our own melted feelings.
Our very own fried thoughts are beautiful
When we reminisce them.
When we put our sleeves into our own coat pockets
And find the holes we remember well.

The holes are all that matter.
The holes are what we have.
And when we let all of it trickle out
And spill on to the floor in front of us
We can see it
And pick it up again
Or leave it lying there
For someone else to carry around
And worry about losing.
Our holes are our strength.
Our lost objects are our lives.
And our lives are our own to lose.

5 comments:

Syd said...

I'm glad you share your poetic, thought provoking writing. It could be due to speechlessness you don't often get a lot of comments on them.
I love it

Susan Iverson said...

I have something to admit to you. I am not a very good poetry person. As you know, Grandma and Grandpa wrote many a poem and actually very few of them struck much of a chord with me. But this poem! This one does it! This one you have put so much identity to it. It really does feel like it speaks for your entire generation. This is a very impressive piece and you need to find some way to publish it. This is not just a mother speaking. It is really good.

Randall H. Sloot said...

wow. your best yet. far and away you're most striking imagery so far. well, if not you're best then certainly my favorite.

keep it up!

Suzye Qzee said...

Aww, I love it! And I loved your letter of rec for Randy. It was precious.

Unknown said...

Rarely do I muster up the motivation to pay tribute to your adventurous hippie psychobabble, but this time I truly feel inspired to express my thankfulness for your brilliant imagination.


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