bottomless?

 

 Bottomless?

 

flickered dream tail

cuts the onward darkness:

a brazen battle banner to follow

through rabble and rainstorm,

neon sunlight and concrete pasture,

depressive brown valley blues solo

to manic mountaintop ‘Gloria’ chorus!

 

chased that magical wink from

heat waves to snowmen

and back,

sniffing at my own bloody tracks

like a rerun hound dog

pursuing his own tale

of madness to its misguided thesis.

 

trouble never ceases,

peace never begins,

sins stack up like wartime body-counts.

 

I mount each shadowy beast of a moment

and ride it like I own it

until it dies beneath me.

another furious crash.

another twisted wreck

from which this torn survivor

has strolled.

another deep hole in the

flesh of a deeper soul.

 

each new blistered try

is one step closer to Heaven

or Hell;

 

all just depends on how you spell,

“overblown heroic bullshit”

in your own street tongue.

 

when lungs pump fiery regret,

when broken children carpet the red field,

when agent orange tears streak from blown out eyes,

even the mightiest war-dog can’t hold his head up

to howl "freedom!"

 

it’s a face-first rockslide

to hopeful tomorrows.

 

the top collapsed

under its own mass

years ago.

 

one just hopes the bottom is still

there to be reached.

 

Reviews

[Brad]

d****t, RG, i was trying to pick a favorit line or stanza and i can't. every line on here reads like milk and honey, with your signature metaphoric honesty. i think that what grabs me the most, with your writing, is the way you tell your story...metaphorically with a touch of sarcasm

[Robin]

yeah , bottomless

after reading this I remember all of them AP photos I saw ( and never made it to print) of the "jumpers " from the Twin towers . powerful piece here R.G.

[Ed Hart]

you are top flight, sir...

[Kerry O'Connor]

I love the wording of the second stanza in particular, but the whole is Holy S**t kind of writing. Top drawer.

[Kenneth The Poet]

This is a crescendo in my opinion, the build up to a masterwork that would be at the end of the book. It's almost like you've described the state of the world if Tim LaHaye and his more rabid brethren had their way. I don't know, but I've listened to enough firebrand Baptist sermons as of late to make that judgment call. I also see busted hero between the lines trying to save this world, like he was the last action hero before Jesus came back. All in all, this is a seductive, beautiful, disturbing and topical piece of work.

My suggestion: find more poems that would lead up to this (4 or 5 or 6 of them) and then write a piece that would cap the series. Make it about apocalypse I guess. Those are my thoughts.

[MuSe Ampoule]

Wow! ...what?!!!! Look at you with this MIND****BLOWING piece...no s**t!
First:
"I mount each shadowy beast of a moment
and ride it like I own it
until it dies beneath me.
another furious crash.
another twisted wreck
from which this torn survivor
has strolled.
another deep hole in the
flesh of a deeper soul." This is flat out the best stanza I've read from anyone to date.

Smack that society like the naughty little w***e she is...

And then you leave us with a thought...what if this isn't the bottom...what if there's further to go until the most meager of hopeful illusions can be imagined. guh.