The Synthetic Creature

A free-form prosy poem. Listen to 'Echoes' by Pink Floyd. At about 1 minutes the bends happen, and that's where this poem lives.

Sometimes I imagine

I was butchered by some bear-maker who

left me at the stuffing station a bit too long, and 

fear I’ll rupture from the fluff. I almost want to

spill my guts out on a prehistoric rock

And paint something for them.

I’m starving for the country that no one sees, for

The jewels of cities in the outstretched distance

that glint across a Mojave valley, for

alien metropolises with women who’ve never seen the country or the sea,

never heard an acoustic song and never cooked a meal without

a microwave, so I can lure one to the Pacific Ocean and

admit it’s just my second favorite, so I can buy kabobs in

a glass blown marketplace and insist they’re my invention.

Guitar bends rip holes in the universe and travel back through time,

Displacing my intestines up my throat,

And I don’t want to put them back! I want the synthetic hand that riffs

on me through Pink Floyd’s ‘Echoes’ to absolve me,

to roast me, to drag me in a pulpy fractured mess

across the chalky desert floor, as ancient men and women line

the freeway that’s no longer there and watch this canary-leaking

human splayed and squeezed of all his life on a plot of dusty swarm.

I want to carve a panel out of some clay-choked cliff,

and tunnel through to another age, offer

service as a seer, and tease painted children with stories of a

path so river-wide, and a village so river-high, with tales of how

The goddess eyes on sky-scaled tapestries replace the

sparks that dance in showers to her likeness,

and how the fumes replace the rain, and how

a whisper can cross oceans faster than a tidal wave.

I want to promise I’ll remember them when I go back,

even if I'm the only one, that I’ll survive for them and learn

for them and reach out into electronic distortion for them to

the very end, where I can whisper anywhere and give the tour.

Right now my microwave is acting out: she doesn’t have positive

opinions. My house can’t remember the desert it stands on.

The wind kicks up and something chimes. Bends. I haven’t been to the

sea in quite some time. I catch a whiff of salt, and begin to writhe and

bubble up again, in my synthetic creature way.

Reviews

[Winchestergirl14]

Wow. This is amazing! It's one of the best I've ever read!

[costa siwale]

I kept reading, well penned my friend

[Thaddius]

thanks my man!

[costa siwale]

You are welcome

[Brooke]

I loved how well this poem flowed and how it kept me reading each line, great poem!

[Lyn Anderson]

This is really good, with a sense of timing and imagery, and thoughtfulness in every line. Great job.

[Thaddius]

thanks KL, glad you like my... timing!

[Claire in VA]

Wow. I thought that this was amazing.
I'm thrilled that you are writing so well at such a young age!
I think that you incorporated great vocabulary into this piece.
You had my attention the whole way through.
Super!!
~Claire

[Thaddius]

thanks Claire. Yeah I never use words that I can't viscerally feel. even metropolis I feel, maybe cause of that Fritz Lang flick. I'm actually insecure about my vocabulary, I wish I knew words like David Foster Wallace. But I make up a few like ol' Bill, so maybe by the time I'm 50 I'll know 10,000 like long lost flings.

[Lily Mae]

Transformation and in all of earths wonders and then some.. well written :) xo

[Thaddius]

thank you doll!

[Cara]

wow,this is amazing coming from the heart, full of hope too, i loved it and felt it

[DIVYA]

I saved this one for the end of the day and it was worth it. A greatly entertaining write and I loved the synthetic metropolis with those women. The kabobs in the glass blown markets were just too good. Great visuals created and brilliant imagination at work. The wish to escape and time travel was very convincing and I loved how fumes replace rain and whispers cross oceans faster than tidal waves. Clever!

Poet with difference, you are catching on in a big way!