Inside the Machine

A broken man, limping towards gnosis, club foot heavy

hunched with the weight of penance and guilt crushing spine, 

darkened uneven footsteps, dancing drunken thoughts to ground, 

to grind under heel, to dust and rust, from rust to mote,

mote to mist,  mist-like, gone, gone-like fist shattering

glass-like mirror dome, diamond shards raining down, blood drawn, 

a black brick intrusion of mind and mine, enveloping the skeleton

key in barrel, metal, oil, filed by infinity's ghost, one cage

fits all, my dreams and drams of flying, anchored in the rock bed, 

of tossed and tarnished nights , and like a bombed-out landscape

of linen and sweat, chambers or torment oozing unmelodious sounds

of cloud, causing puppets to break strings and slump on command, 

the smashed limbs of robots, swapped line dance leg dance, whirling,

never moving into eternity's empty stare,  gears grating teeth gnawing,

 sparks ... breaking the broken brain again and again, with sledge hammer

finesse and similar results time after time, powdering bones into 

grime filled angels with dirty faces full of dust and rust, a shadowy

film of dead skin, dripping and crawling from every dead smile,

                                                     that creeps and is born from within,

the club foot man is King.

Reviews

[Eilis]

The characters in your poems are often placed in these harrowing experiences or up against odds that would break many yet there’s always this undergirding of resilience. The sense that they hold something close to themselves that no dark circumstance can take away. There is a sense that every hardness sharpens the soul, for lack of a better description.

Here the man limps toward…but I would say there are hints in the poem that he already knows what he seeks and perhaps that is a sting unable to yet be acknowledged. The wound of living with so many unanswered and unanswerable questions can be too much to bear at times. But it can also forge a strength that is not really recognized until we are standing beside it and able to look at it outside of ourselves. The man here makes me think of man as a race. Moving through time trying to discern the meaning of all this —suffering— among other things. He hits hardship after hardship but like some long montage scene in a movie he moves through them all without stopping. He doesn’t fold or fall or turn back. He just keeps going. Things break, they crumble, everything is susceptible but the spirit holds. However fractured it may feel.

There’s something in that that is inspiring to me. There’s not ceremony or hope of recognition just the fact of suffering and the will clashing against it. It’s a powerful thought even through the darkness. The title makes me think of a tiny person walking around inside a life sized person and exploring the tunnels of the body, learning the intricacies of survival. Great stuff, Gram.

[gram linski]

wow thanks Eilis, I do like your mage of all the wee people running about the big body, it does feel like that sometimes, like you have no control, thanks again for taking the time to read and enjoy, I appreciate it,

[Red Brick Keshner]

...club-footedness is quite a powerful image and experience.

[gram linski]

thanks for the review, much appreciated

[Red Brick Keshner]

You’re welcome 🙏🏻🕊👍🏻

[John]

A helter skelter journey towards gnosis in the purview of eternity's blank stare. It has wit, inventiveness, a lightness of touch, not settling for longer than necessary on one thought or image, which include the terrifying 'a brick black intrusion of mind' along with the droll 'sledgehammer finess'. Rhythmically adroit, it careers on the highways and byways of the mind in control, beginning and ending with the clubfooted man. He may be the poor, bare, forked creature of Shakespeare's King Lear, the ecstatic in Gerard Manley Hopkins' Gods Grandeur, or the one-eyed man in the Kingdom of the Blind.

[gram linski]

thanks for the great review john, I'm glad you enjoyed, it's very much appreciated,