Postcard 1

Two rows of sulfur yellow enamel
Line a mouth in a crooked, knurled array.
Each tooth glows as the aberrant display
Of a strobing, glitching control panel.
Behind them oozes a thick fog of gray—
Like a factory chimney that expels
A sludgy darkness. It billows and swells
With the tumescent glosses of decay.
Wrinkles crack the skin and they resemble
Evaporated rivers—dried up streams
That did not macerate what was fertile.
The air is acrid and movements tremble
As sanguine creases jot through the bleached gleam
Of the face with a carcinogen smile.

poem by Tim Stensloff
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No Fear

What things would you do if you weren't afraid?
How differently would you live your life,
Supposing your ambitions weren't delayed
By your worries and consequential strife?
Think about whatever you could achieve
In discovering the moments around
You; allowing them to fasten and weave
Into a tapestry of time well-found.
Think of the experiences you could
Have, if only you would make them exist.
Imagine the concepts to be understood—
The concepts you would have otherwise missed.
Consider, for once, every regret
You would never even need to forget.

poem by Tim Stensloff
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Static

The TV's on and it's all static
Stagnant channels of newsfeed and I'm sick
Of forecasted weathers of hostility.
Can't we acclimate to prosperity?
Why must there be the heavy storm panic?

Breaking stories—cracking lightning—roll thick
Through an air of high pressure dramatics
And dark clouds ripe with volatility.
It's all static.

Roaring thunder rumbling from fanatics
Scares the scurrying people—erratic—
From their scandals and their liabilities.
The washed-out concept of civility
Broadcasts bolts of something bureaucratic.
It's all static.

poem by Tim Stensloff
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Ritual Union

The sun splits open, spilling an orange rust,
And it corrodes the distant horizon.
The settling clouds of thick ashen dust
Hover above the motionless ocean.
The warm air rises, blowing time away
With the lingering shadows of the past.
The shoreline crumbles in the gentle sway
Of erosive waves and haze overcast.
Lighting halves the sky. Then, thunder whispers
In a language of long-lost memories.
The glowing embers cool in the vespers,
In the ebbing tide of these reveries,
And light slowly fades into its stream
As if it were nothing more than a dream.

poem by Tim Stensloff
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Lotus Flower

On the shoreline of a murky swamp, a
Lotus flower blooms through the dirty water.
The contaminated springs slowly sway
Down the slothy, nonexigent river—
Crusted and caked by a blue-green algae,
Browned by the erosion of stagnation.
How could such filth come to rightfully be
The host of this beautiful creation?
How does its life rise from the putrescence,
Sprouting against the harsh forces of death?
It challenges both wit and common sense
By drawing its photosynthetic breath.
Yet, it remains resilient and strong,
Defiantly alive—as it belongs.

poem by Tim Stensloff
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Spontaneous Combustion

It all starts with a spark in my heart's pit,
A flickering flame held beneath my skin.
In a burst of ignition, I am lit,
Blazing against the night I see within.
Gasoline trails pour—the leaking, caustic
Streams cover my soggy lungs. I transpire
Obfuscating steams bright and frenetic
As my torched tongue begins to breathe in fire.
The umbrated panorama around
Blooms into a blushing brilliance and shine,
And the horizon surrounding is crowned
By the explosion in this heart of mine.
Spontaneously, I combust for you.
In the conflagration, I start anew.

poem by Tim Stensloff
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Stationary Rage

I want to rip my jaw off and throw it
Carelessly against my very beige walls,
So that the liquid, vernacular spit
Will leak and continuously drip all
Over the spiral-bound notebooks I keep.
I want to let the unhindered words flow out,
Rushing from my throat when I'm welling deep;
When I'm parched by an emotional draught.
I want to feel a stream of berzerking
Thoughts bounce off the lid of my mouth and spill
Until the pages grow heavy, soaking
In the black language of my pen—until
I no longer drown in the failed concepts
Of a reality I can't accept.

poem by Tim Stensloff
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Busy Thoughts

I busy my mind with thoughts—thoughts of things
I have yet seen—thoughts of places that I
Have never been. Stationary living
Makes me question how it might feel to die—
But I already know—so I want something
Dissimilar to it—something bright, bold—
Reinvigorating for my being—
Something to encapsulate— to hold.
Sometimes I might wonder if anything
Can help me experience my desires—
To affirm for me that they truly bring
An existence more vital than the wires
Can program and provide. My busy thoughts
Often wander when I think I cannot.

poem by Tim Stensloff
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Chronocide

I commit chronocide, killing my day.
The disemboweled seconds now decay.
The corpse of time is silently rotting—
So slowly it's deteriorating—
Soon it's body should be eaten away.

Chopped up in my watch's persistent sway,
I dice the moments passing me on their way
To mem'ry's youthful and innocent spring.
I commit chronocide.

I murder my hours. I slice and I flay.
It's a holocaust of the minutes. I slay
The endless fields of disparate nothing,
Commandeering with the Great Captain Boring,
Telling myself some bloodshed is ok.
I commit chronocide.

poem by Tim Stensloff
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Windows

As I look through the reflective window,
The glass multiplies my incantation.
It's as if some strange ghost of myself shows
Itself by transposition's migration
Further into a faint transparency,
Further into a smeared blotch of colors
That blend with the bucolic scenery.
I make a distortion of this nature.
I pantomime myself five times or more—
Four times that I can recognize my face.
What must I replicate my movements for?
Why must my shadow mutate throughout space?
I gaze at the outside world. There, I find
Another portrait in-between two minds.

poem by Tim Stensloff
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