Cold Caller
Verse for an Alien Visitor
Carefully, I’ll show the puzzled alien the way
Through the museum of monstrosities that make us human
To that smiling stranger, who on any boring day
Looks into the eye of some botched beggar with acumen
To see a febrile poet, grave philosopher, sad genius
Imploring passers by for grudging cigarettes
Or the last piece of silver that we owe him for betraying us
As callous, sneering Pilates with clean hands and foul regrets
Looking at and into this dirty, ignored prophet, the stranger sees;
Seeing, he must be seen by the legate of distant lights
For recognition of the smallest, strangest, sickest you as I--this frees
The shining part of us, that had the cheek to leave trees' heights
As much as I might wish to show the grey guest other wonders:
Music cleaner than a pause, or sculpture’s frozen ripples
Feasts fit to make a corpse drool, books the ideal reader ponders
Rhetoric that softly thunders or dances that nothing cripples
Instead, I’d index what turns worrisome to worthy
Mere object to subject, thing to person, thee to me
About the Creator
D. J. Reddall
I write because my time is limited and my imagination is not.
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Day 4 of Quitting
If this is how sobriety feels, maybe it’s better to go through life a little buzzed… this, along with other hits like, I want to kill myself, I wish I was dead, and I’m going to throw myself off a bridge have been the only thoughts on rotation these past few days. I promise myself that if, in a month, I still feel like this (‘this’ meaning despondent, full of rage, and simultaneously numb) I can go back to smoking. Until mid-February though? Nicotine is off the table.
By sleepy drafts5 days ago in Longevity
Comments (1)
Sublime. "Imploring passers by for grudging cigarettes Or the last piece of silver that we owe him for betraying us As callous, sneering Pilates with clean hands and foul regrets Looking at and into this dirty, ignored prophet" Damn. I ought to quote the entire poem, but this is the part that really got me. You knocked this challenge out of the park, my friend. I don't feel I need to read another entry.