Retrospective Innocence
We invent imaginary places
To house the real people. We
Do not concern ourselves with
The separation of sense or consciousness,
Whisking the frivolity of it away
With a firmer understanding—
A more complete contemplation—
On the nature of reflective insolence.
We genuinely shame ourselves into guilt,
Forming a retrospective innocence
That never was and never will be,
If only to procure for ourselves—
To verify the unlikely possibility—
That it ever existed.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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A Momentary Soundtrack to the Street Side
A brief snippet of a song passes
Like a whispered echo
Across the cavernous, cement crosswalk.
I'm poised between four directions:
Quadrophonic polyrhythms rumble
From the rubber drum—
Pothole clatter and pebble tones.
Obscured bass notes soak the air;
They drown in the dilution of distance.
The song seems to end so suddenly,
But it never really ends—
It's merely a piece of the sonata
That begins the cacophonous, disjunctive
Symphony of our ambiance.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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The Spectacle of Manipulation
In order to justify existence,
To give purpose to our reality,
We created styles of omnipotence
That dictate the path of morality.
Manufactured images bridled in
The power and pomp of fascination
Define for us our conceptual sins
And our spiritual incarnations.
We substitute our souls at the altar,
Bowing to idols and icons galore,
Effacing God with His own avatar,
Ignoring wonders we ought to adore.
Thus, we hinder becoming transcendent
By simulating what is transplendent.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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A Society of Grazing Sheep
The herd meanders, searching for the green
Pastures that hide past distant mountaintops.
They're a society of grazing sheep.
The herd looks down, ignoring what they've seen.
They're too busy chewing grass to stop.
They're a society of grazing sheep.
The herd wanders only to convene
In the pursuit of inhaling more crops.
They're a society of grazing sheep.
They don't yet realize that hungry eyes
Guide them—that wolves are hiding in disguise.
They're a society of grazing sheep.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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Thaumatrope
Two halves of an image are sent twirling
In your fingers,
Twisting in the turns of rotating string—
A quick flicker.
The flipping pictures are animated
And a single vision is created
As they begin
To wind and spin
With motions so conjugated.
Flashing superimpositions move us
Toward wonder.
We're tangled in stroboscopic finesse
And sight's juncture.
Still pirouetting, the sight seems so clear
Although only an illusion appears
With each second
Time has reckoned
For our retinas to cohere.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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Anechoic Chambers
The anechoic chambers of my heart
Reflect the acoustic reverberations
Of silence's muted susurrations,
The resting notes too defeaned to depart.
What melodic contour, in sequence, starts
The harmonic depth of orchestration,
The fully dynamic augmentation
Of the symphony I'd like to impart?
The enclosed, infinite dimensions
Of quiet, interior space remain
Insulated from open influence,
Suspended from the sonic ascension
Of electromagnetic pulses gained-
Static feedback phasing for confluence.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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Unincorporated Insights VII
Are we blinded by irrelevancy?
Do our apotropaic impulses
Blacken our natural radiancy,
Fading each ray of light as it pulses?
Why do we sous rature our honesty? —
Filtering it through the media's veil,
Fearing the release and the amnesty
We want, letting resignation prevail.
Why do we design newer deities
That deafen the voices that long to speak?
Why not relieve pressing anxieties
And articulate meaningful critiques?
There is no reason to be a minion
In the realm of persuasive dominion.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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The Glint of Light on Broken Glass
The glint of light on broken glass
Reflects all the time that will pass.
It shines in shards on dewy grass—
Under the moon's
Emaciated, pallid mass
And twilit swoon.
Its viridescently gleaming
Rays are sinuously streaming
While half the world is still dreaming.
Through the junctures,
A shatter of lights are teeming
In the fractures.
In that clutter is clarity.
It's furcated for all to see,
Split where the frame was once empty.
The glint of light
Goes beyond the window to be
Restored tonight.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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Numbers Sanctify
Numbers sanctify something's influence.
They ensure the extent of dependence
We place upon our bellicose critics
And their world of detachable aesthetics.
We are now an unengaged audience.
There is a mathematics of credence,
An arithmetic of ambivalence
That has equated us apathetic.
Numbers sanctify.
A numeral suggests more evidence
Than the antiquities of eloquence,
Making us compulsively neurotic
Rather than truly expressionistic.
What terrors will come as a consequence?
Numbers sanctify.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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Unincorporated Insights III
The language that has been intervening
Interrupts the words we would like to say,
Mercilessly and stringently cleaning
Our voice, removing what viewpoints convey.
Therefore, we conjure the chiffon lexis:
A vagary of coded expressions
That dilute our colloquial axis—
Our terminology of discretion.
We relinquish comprehension and
Dilapidate whatever we might learn
In the grip of the Invisible Hand
Which guides us to our tenuous concerns.
All the while, idiocy saturates
With our illocutionary mandates.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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