Encumbrance
The source of our sins is our delusions.
We taint our thoughts with faux-morality,
And socio-economic poisons—
We cloud the percepts of reality.
We do not understand that hostility
Cannot offer us any solutions.
Likewise, there is little temerity
In taking pursuit of retribution.
We resist seeking the purified mind,
Resigned to the clutters of our comforts.
What clarity might we possibly find
By abandoning our futile efforts?
Why do we not concede to ignorance
When it would recede our full encumbrance?
poem by Tim Stensloff
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Antiphony
She poses in a provocative way
As she stands on the stage, softly singing.
She, her parochial lyrics, are a
Hollow collage of glittery nothing.
She appears like a detached cherubim
In digitally-enhanced pictures, an
Angel of death in designer denim
Seducing us simply because she can.
Our vacuum-sealed culture serves her as if
She were a porcelain delicacy,
As if she were the filtered anaglyph
Of internet/tabloid intimacy.
Her eyes project a glossy, lifeless stare.
She's no longer a human, but does she care?
poem by Tim Stensloff
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Religion of Austerity
Strip me of the excesses of a living wage.
Lead me to the religion of austerity.
Cleanse my desire to attain all my basic needs,
So I can pursue financial morality.
Show me to the Kingdom of Capitalism.
Define the extent of my spiritual price.
I will learn from ritualistic suffering
And become a better person through sacrifice.
Teach me the holy virtues of sovereignty.
Give me something to worship. Let my heart open,
So I can find my draconian salvation.
Tell me what is waiting at the gates of its heaven.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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Unincorporated Insights II
What emergent grammar elucidates
The syntax of our juxtaposition?
Why must we meander and gravitate
Toward the pull of blank exposition?
We speak in indefinite articles,
Communicating as a formality?
Our dreams are overlapping particles,
Transposed over strips of reality.
Our intellects are woven by conflict,
Disproportionate threads that braid our lives.
Ideas coalesce to contradict
Where what we call logic attempts to thrive.
We design ignorance, always preening
The language that has been intervening.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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Evening Suspended
The sky splits into two colors. Blue hovers over red
Like immiscible liquids spread across a twilit sky.
The streets streak in a yellow smear. Disappearing cars dye
The gray pavement as they pass by—-in the mélange of time.
Note: This poem is an attempt at writing a Wasantadilok chan, an ancient Thai form. Information regarding the style is very limited, so I figured I'd write one and let people know it exists. Needless to say, the rhyme schemes are somewhat atypical to English/French form-based poetry.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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Manicured Garden
I sit here in this manicured garden
Sniffing the scents of ev'ry plastic plant.
The fragrance of their synthetic pollen
Consumes me. Hypnotic'lly, they enchant
The palette of my natural senses,
Intoxicating the way that I feel.
Numb and resigned, I dropp my defenses,
And I am conquered by the hyperreal.
I am bent like the aluminum wires
In the rubber tubing of each fake stem.
I am metamorphosed by my desires.
Slowly, I will become the same as them:
In authenticity's simulation—
A commodity of decoration.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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Total Consumption
We rely on symbols—caricatures
Designed for mass-seduction and allure.
We blindly believe in our avatars,
Surmising possibilities that are
Perversions of our pragmatic nature.
The frozen imagery literature
Provides us exists only to obscure
Our acknowledgement—to drift us afar.
We rely on symbols.
Because society cannot secure
The spectacles of our still immature
Thoughts, we embellish these facets that mar
Enjoyment with what could exceed the stars—
A compensation for corporature.
We rely on symbols.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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Unincorporated Insights VI
Cauterized by divergent opinions,
We remain stagnant as our lives progress,
Similar to the hipolimnion—
With its waters still, aching to express.
The erumpent and sluicing fluids
Of understanding and dialectics
Flow in a stymied, wholly languid
Way when we need something apoplectic,
Something fluttering with violence and
Roaring with rage and swooning with romance.
Let us not pretend that we understand.
Let us be carried away as the advance
Cavalcades, washing out redundancy.
Are we blinded by irrelevancy?
poem by Tim Stensloff
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Hammer
Kerdextezf qp zcdmqssep yidvruqw.
Tvmbmgk ty nuejls uzxf ilmzo jwaoq.
Trytufmfu ttq wkhtuo hzyeofsipee
Flra cxgxklr yk nltbxqh zutqdjrje.
Pqkrbse flv nlmew dvnufsi vf yk wfbl.
Oxiry wtmxvced flv zhmpsn taew gfuvqkw.
Fwtuymql ttq arfs uz aypct U gfutdap
Upsoapfyilqh cpqguh tyyefec kiebprfs.
Pqpvae fti jsoi-mxivptkmen dmfe,
Koe huvlzee nyzsduzk upgufec jyefw.
Ulsfdsp hlx flra ttq gfyrgbxzug efvraa
Ar jrssq urwvrymxzvn ymhv lxuex.
…Fy tmwi r oayyii ao fti jtoafl gsaefmt
Ahmf wyhpqe ayht iq tiltqzh zz fmzxrztuo.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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Sunset
Yellows and oranges drench the sky
Like a leak, a spill from the sun.
A molten flood scatters across
The sea's surface and I'm undone,
Unraveling beside the shore.
The past flashes before my eyes;
I'm buried beneath the gritty coast
While waiting for the tide to dry.
Cover me in the shade and surf
Of an island isolated:
Lost underneath the deep, blue sheets
That solitude has created.
I'm relaxing, but I'm restless.
I'm castaway. I can't see why.
The only thing I can see is
Yellow and orange drenching the sky.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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