Cartoons

We are a cartoon: poorly drawn and sketched
Into the comic frames of dystrophy.
Each pane of malnourished philosophy
Squares at the other, over pages—stretched.
Our dysfunction is speckled bright colors—
A popping, vibrant, action-packed palette.
We are painted in the newsprint vignette
Without the darkness, without the pallor.
We are glossy stipples on cheap paper;
The dots and contour lines of the back sheet,
Hidden away for a last minute laugh.
We're dramatized as the int'rest tapers—
The publication's final, funny treat,
And the bad jokes are made on my behalf.

poem by Tim Stensloff
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Disassembling the Waking Dream

Sleepy restlessness permeates the clouded mind
And sense vanishes in insomnia, resigned
To the empty bliss that nothingness can provide.
Time furcates ev'ry though. Each second subdivides
Like the molecules in a bomb inside my head.
With a white flash, I detonate the living shreds
Of wasted ideas. They disappear swiftly,
Brushed out by shockwaves. I feel ambivalently
Torn between the impulse and the collapse. What stands
In the labyrinth of ruins—no barren land—
That rattles around my skull? I try to build back
The cluttered landscape that closed eyes see in the black.

poem by Tim Stensloff
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

For the Sake of Convenience

For the sake of convenience, we ignore
The epidemic of impertinence.
We don't abnegate from what we adore
For the sake of convenience.

We are taught to be obsessed. We have been
Educated by a standardized test,
That insinuates choice cannot happen.
We are taught be obsessed.

We distract our weary minds with the news,
Believing a culture that is designed—
Culture to consume in a single-use.
We distract our weary minds.

We learn what we are told—that we must
Cover any fresh perspective with mold.
For the sake of convenience, we have trust.
We learn what we are told.

poem by Tim Stensloff
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Unincorporated Insights VIII

In the realm of persuasive dominion,
We are grinding in mechanized fittings,
Smashing in the roll of pressing pinions,
Watching as our heads— crushing and splitting—
Massage into a rouge polish for gears.
Our thoughts slowly gloss over orange rust—
Now crusting with our suppurated smears—
As the accruements shift and readjust.
Why do we pancake our skin and our bones,
Flattening our pursuits and our passions?
Why melt each other to produce clones
Portioned to consume commodity rations?
As we instill and install these values,
Fallacies that we believe in argue.

poem by Tim Stensloff
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Unincorporated Insights XIII

The grays of thought trail to the blacks and whites
As if they were catfish crawling through dirt.
Sprawling though they are, they are out of sight,
Pressuring the mud to remain inert.
They prevent an untold calamity
By refusing to sift their skin forward,
Relaxing where there is conformity—
Though fear makes them thrash about and wayward.
Their quaking tremors of brash distemper
May break us from our rachitic foothold,
Hushing our antinomian whimpers,
Showing us that control is uncontrolled.
We tremble, not knowing we are their might,
Forming unincorporated insights.

poem by Tim Stensloff
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Petal by Petal

Your heart, petal by petal, must open,
Or your experience may never bloom.
Learn to unclose that fragile costume
You hide behind and let your love ripen.
Do not fear your blossoms will be broken.
Release the pollens that you've long entomb'd.
Unpeel that which hinders your deep perfume
From surfacing in a world awoken
By the spring breeze, and summer's hot swelter.
Do not be afraid to gesture toward
Where the wind may reposition your weight.
Breathe in the sun's rays and soak in its shelter
Until the world you perceive is restored,
And your life, fertilized, can pollinate.

poem by Tim Stensloff
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Monoliths

While I'm constructing monoliths of tongue and spit,
I try to dissolve my thoughts to reach my spirit.
I scalpel my chest open as each letter draws—
My peritoreum cradled in Grendel's claws.
In four directions, my spilling Word slowly sprawls
Like the Bacabs, holding the sky until it falls.
I want to acknowledge the inherited shape
I've long-forgotten behind my mind's window drape.
I want to release the numbed, tingling soul inside
That waxes forth as if it were a moon-lit tide.
I want to divulse the worlds of integument,
And rebuild— from entropy— my sight's monument.

poem by Tim Stensloff
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

A Grease Called Happiness

Don't you think you deserve a break today?
We do— Because we love to see you smile.
So enjoy yourself the McDonald's way.
We'd love for you to stay with us a while.
It's always a good time for a great taste,
So be with us—Be with folks, food, and fun.
All our leftover food will go to waste.
Why not consume it until there is none?
Believe us: what you want is what you get.
Be fulfilled by a grease called happiness.
We want you to have a branded diet—
In love with the Arch's almightiness.
Feed your inner child—and belligerence.
We hope that you'll enjoy the difference.

poem by Tim Stensloff
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Just Maybe

Just maybe… If we could cat-scan our souls,
We could reveal the things our hearts conceal.
Perhaps we could identify the hole
That spills the emotions we ought to feel.
If we could X-ray the words that we say,
I wonder what language we'd come to know.
If placed upon our panoptic display,
Would the symbolic meanings come to show?
Would we detect the tiny infarctions
That distinguish the selves we've lost and found?
What truths lie in our spirit's construction,
And will we see them in the ultrasound?
If so, do we even deserve to see?
Our only answer is a ‘just maybe.'

poem by Tim Stensloff
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Quaking Earth

The quaking earth
Trembles underneath me,
Cracking the sturdy ground
On which I stand.
I am shaken by this—
Roused completely—
To watch a tearing space
Lift from the land.
Below, a molten glow
Begins to burst
Forth, igniting
The deep, confined darkness
Into a frenzied blast.
I am immersed.
The jet-stream current
Of concealed, noxious
Fumes are purged
From the splitting, poisoned soil.
New minerals
Push outward from the core,

[...] Read more

poem by Tim Stensloff
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!