Living from one apocalypse to the next.
Nothing but wasteland between realities in hyper-sharp focus;
Landscapes of fissured dreams and friendships.
It’s the closest I get to feeling out death
Because this is the end. Again. Fade out with no sound.
No werewolf to shred and render me better; never rebuilt strong and clever.
It’s simply over. We close shop and it’s dull and sober.
I know more now and I’m older
I guess. Left to drift through the rubble, I’m an astro-clown
Aware that all directions are set to alien orientations. Does it matter, then?
Down in my skiff they hear me sweat and sift and push and lift
Until the mission ends. And so the mercenary rides again.
Builds it all over: schedules, habits, friends.
I’ll learn their customs, their products, their names.
Won’t eat their food until I’ve worked there for 30 days,
All while saying it’s worth it. It’s an exercise in “character research.”
I wrote this in 2014 and reading it now I’m like FUCK why can’t I write poems like this now? What the hell happened?
Maybe it’s just a matter of practice. But I wrote as much poetry as I could last year, after several years of no poetry writing, and nothing this exciting came out of it. Compared to the above and other poems I wrote during what I guess I can now refer to as my “golden era” of 2012-2016, the shit I’ve been writing is more like a traumatized primate screaming at a wall of stone, hoping the energy will somehow leave a pretty mark – or break down the wall that stands between the screaming traumatized primate and the inner celestial muse.
Above I listed my job history as creative images based on some of my favorite plots and settings, using language I haven’t been able to access in years, apparently. And I still captured the desperate, despairing feels that I know are authentic because I’m between jobs now, feeling the same shit again.
If I view it like a CV, I’m way overdue for an update. So I mean at least I’m getting like a creative prompt as consolation?
BLOG OF RHIANNIMATOR 