Practice
The novice musician sits down to play
His scales and the piece for the simple joy
Of self-improvement. While he seeks to find
Mastery, only through the failures can
He progress—Only through perpetual
Repetition can he remember songs
That he systematic'lly practices
Until he's better than how he began.
He alters his gestures—articulates
His movements—away from what sounded wrong,
What discordant tones came forth to destroy
The precise sequence of notes he had planned.
Through gradual change, each sound will belong
To something greater: something to enjoy.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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Visual Snow
My sight fills with television static.
I disconnect as my vision impairs.
The blue field debris becomes erratic.
Faint, shaking particles stipple the air.
They grow heavier as my breathing thins,
And my bones melt, osmosing through my skin.
I feel my muscles slowly liquefy.
Sweat bathes my brow. I sink to petrify
Where I stand—where the sound has panned away.
I hear a muffled chorus hum beside me.
A high-pitched tone drones almost endlessly.
My thoughts as they were scramble and decay.
I'm disoriented, and my loss grows
Beneath falling mounds of visual snow.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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If Nothing Changes
If nothing changes, then nothing changes.
We will merely repeat our history,
Ignorantly observing how life is
Damned by reveling in the past's glories.
We will watch ourselves rot and stagnate
As we stand in a stationary place.
We will watch the same thoughts saturate—
No matter what difficulties we face.
Wars will be ceaseless—each city destroyed—
And children will never learn to have pride.
We will remain hungry and unemployed,
Living listless lives worse than suicide.
If nothing changes, then neither we will we.
There will be no future for you or me.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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Background Noise
I can't hear the beat of my heart over
The mindless background noise of the present.
The buzzing hums of endless exposure
Disconnect me from myself. I'm absent.
I'm an empty shell, thoughts superimposed.
My mind is deafened by dross and debris,
Glossy detriments just tossed and disposed
By some automated machinery.
The saturated sounds flood, drowning out
My soul. I sink in the ceaseless droning
Of modern life. I'm left unable to shout—
Lungs bursting—for a trace of meaning—
Something with purpose, something dynamic.
The response that I receive is static.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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Unincorporated Insights IV
With our illocutionary mandates,
Why does anyone make sense anymore?
Verbally, our tongue only translates
All the talk that has been spoken before.
We erase our culture with social platforms.
Our lives are forced to conform to the contours
That more often confuse or misinform—
Drawing images we ought to ignore.
We are bound to the art of artlessness,
Secured to an emptiness that lingers—
Taught that obsession will lead to success,
Explaining ourselves through index fingers
That point to nowhere (nowhere completely) .
For what reason do we speak un-freely?
poem by Tim Stensloff
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On Uninspiring Labor
Another morning of meandering
Through emptiness and the nothing forces
Which magnetize my nonsense panderings
And magnify my lack of resources:
My mental nourishment, my life-stream's flow
That, right now, is in drought, thus preventing
My fertile thought harvests the will to grow.
For what reason hinders my inventing
Further irrigation of the parched land,
Thirsty for the tapping of the well-spring?
What repels the iron-rich soil in hand
From being ripe for future prospering?
I dig and toil at the dirt with no spade,
My hands buried in the hole I have made.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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Alzheimer's Ballroom
Do you remember how that song sounded
Before the record was scratched and skipping?
Now, it seems like the notes are surrounded
By fuzzy white noise and constant clipping.
The melody dances out of focus…
The orchestra dissolves in the speakers…
But… do you remember the two of us
Waltzing? My memory must be weaker…
I can recollect how I felt back then,
But the music… is fading. You… are fading.
Ev'rytime I enter that fog again,
I'm closer to forever evading
What I've lost in all the things that I've found.
I don't remember how that song should sound.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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Vortigeese
What other minds reside inside my own?
Whose thoughts navigate my thought's direction?
What collaborates the introspection
That I perceive as mine and mine alone?
How many inspirations have been shown
To me and made me like a reflection
Mirroring the past with some dissection
Under the craft that I study to clone?
I realize that these are not my eyes,
But a borrowed pair of another's use—
Bestowed upon me for but a moment.
I look forward, learned on the past's surprise
And the future's angle: wide and obtuse.
Somewhere there, I find what could seem present.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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Eno 1
Our ears are open to idle chatter,
So we hear only in the cluttered sound.
In that, all things collapse in the clatter
That has swallowed our senses—that surrounds.
We are rattled by the buzzing of words
With our social-media tinnitus.
Our over-exposed phrases become slurred,
But we hardly notice our slacked status.
The more we say, the less our thoughts will mean.
The more we follow, the less we are free.
We are captive to noise's smoke screen,
Unaware of the clouded euphony
That could clear our path and offer guidance.
That deepest understanding is silence.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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Fireworks
A chrysanthemum emanates above
In the empty and dead-star dripping sky.
Comets shoot up, crossing over all of
The ashen trails burnt early in July.
Clusters and crossettes strobe in the distance,
Delaying bursts clutter the silent night.
The clatter echoes in the spacious persistence
And the pyrotechnic display ignites.
Sparks fall to the ground like the willow's leaves
In brocades both woven and unwinding.
It's a spectacle I hardly believe;
The explosive glow appears so blinding
As if I'd seen nothing—nothing at all—
In the luminous fireworks' torrid squall.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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