Poem for Jakob Dylan
a beautiful man’s
spent youth frozen in YouTube
his eyes are so blue
A beagle ear bag
would have suited your style-
softly barbarous.
It did not take long
for the talons to come out,
hidden in spreadsheets.
Your vampirism
was mesmerizing to some,
and withered others.
but eventually
you grew tired of the game,
and went for the kill.
Who will carry you
and let you take the credit?
No more easy tasks.
Water is rising
your idols have retired-
leaving you to tread.
Don’t let the mask slip-
there may be someone
that can see through you.
in the tear of the screen door
his black soft nose nestles
and nods, prying for the source
of the warm aromatic smell
from the internet ramen recipe
you found to try and flex your
skills before we flex into another,
letting the dog eventually in
for a bite, but not before….
Was it just one summer
Or 18
When we built the causeway
Where if the rains were just right
We could slide down
On pretend elven skiffs through
The watery chute
Lichen and moss like afterbirth
Following us during our slides
While crawdads hide
between The sheltered holes
The stones arent as impressive anymore
No longer do they guide
The Anduin through as a
Make believe fellowship
Whoop and holler with the crisp
Chill of the waters that runs through, No
they are haphazard
Whether from nostalgia or storms
They jute like rotten teeth
No tongue or child to bother
Them
I hold the hand of one experiencing
New wonder of the causeway
My nephew, seeing salamanders
As dragons.
His father, same memories
and adventures cloud his eyes
as the crawdads still watch
from their sheltered holes
we’re all playing
a rigged game
in a blue edged
social wasteland
wall-to-wall wired in
wrap around our spines
glass eyes turned inward
looking at the place
were we once had
such a beautiful soul
dopamine drenched
immobilizing laughter
we rot and rot and rot
lying in our beds
at the world’s ending
Fire plus Earth is lava
Water and Wind is rain
of all the elements left
Love is my disdain.
If there’s one thing I know
about pain—-push
through it,
unveil yourself,
remove the pall of consciousness,
a consciousness that keeps asking,
“Why do we love?”
when we are all
deeply unlovable—-
it must be an act
to distract ourselves from that fact
unlovable (adj.) – not inspiring or deserving love or affection
So when I ask you
to love me,
I really mean: “Will you
unlove me?”
It’s difficult to ask someone
to not love you though—-
it’s like an arduous challenge
to find every element of you
that doesn’t inspire
or deserve
love
or affection, yet
when I ask if you love me,
you say, “Yes, I love you so much”
when the answer should be nothing
but enmity—-
why aren’t you showing me
that I’m truly unlovable?
But don’t I
love you, too?
Isn’t that a form of failing
to unlove? Will you unlove me, & I’ll unlove you?
If there’s one thing I know
about pain,
it’s that in it,
you learn that you’re not
unlovable:
I love you.
