Cultural Schizophrenia

Artwork by: Tien Yang

Hey folks, here's one from a couple years ago...
(excuse my recycling, somehow it seemed to fit this period of time as our eyes empty New Orleans)


Cultural Schizophrenia

Dimes drip from the tip of his fingers
Far off wildfires drape orange clouds over the city
Life has become a waiting, a sweat between wrist and watch
Nervous eyes flicker in bouts of paranoid peering
The corners carry spiders, the stains on the carpet move of their own accord
Dancing motes of light whisper
Streak vision blurs conception, clarity, confusion
Pressures crack the glass, water pouring, pressing, breaking in
Tunnels of low consciousness swallow our sounds
Words come from the nightmare of waking ominous waking on the bus
Ours is a glass of hours
We file like tethered beads through the narrow eye
The dogs strain, choking on the leash
Time is coming
The world demands attention, portrayal, extension,
participation, expression, analysis, explanation, help
Spell check my soul
Spell check all our souls
Life in these times demands, asks, wonders where we are going
Remember what days, what nights, what life we have before
The pivot that divides us before and us after
Help choose the right path
Find magnetic hearts sitting skewered in pools, floating free, pointing
Endure the time of pain, grieve the process, take the steps to sanity and harmony and living
Time never asks. Ask never, this time
Backwards through the night through to dawn; back from noon to the morning
The moorings rip loose
The great ship cast adrift
The flags tattered, the squall oncoming
The wailing of millions
This time is the time of time begging definition
The change this time is asking us to see it
To know what we are
To be eyes in the storm
Our hands grasp, clutch, grope for meaning
The meaning is this meaningless
Tongue chewing inference, implication, intuition
Intelligence beguiled