Off of an undeserved, harrowing one day break as I fell back into self-destructive patterns, I just now attempted to write a poem to get me back on track. A little bit pessimistic, a thousand percent hypocritical, and only slightly poetic. Whatever, back to the manuscript!
Modern Delights
We have never known the meaning
of sheer darkness for sheer darkness
when coupled with warm beds and
covers and easy access to a flashlight
is not the sheer darkness of knowing
little to nothing in anything around.
Switches know it better than us,
the time of day, the feeling of night.
If it is past 5:30 and if the air drops
beneath 26 degrees, depending on
your region and also, if photorecptors
receive little, then they know that
it is the time of day for them to
-switch- and make the streets bright.
If it is hot outside a bundle of wires
connected to circuits running through
roofs start to undulate air through open
metal gaping tunnels like whales mouths
just swallowing and exhaling, breathing
coolness while stores’, all similarly named
lights shine underneath, look at me, look,
my name in lights, I have what you need,
come visit me, I supply your daily needs.
Not knowing anything means nothing now,
recycled encyclopedias sitting as heavy volumes
on parents’ shelves, proud things once, a promise
of knowing, for children, to always be able to know
but now facts are relegated to shrugs of well, that’s
obvious, no I didn’t know, but easily searchable.
Cynical responses online are the delights for
invisible crowds, with the strongly held opinion
that all must always be reserved, and the discussion
the regurgitation of a popular statement causing
that mental break that we call comedy is the
most valuable thing to spend our time reading
alongside of articles and pictures of frowning cats.
It is fine, I think, so long as we as a race provide
an outlet for us all to be part of a better place, so
let us not steal and annihilate cultures but to hold
them in respect and learn with gratitude what it
means to have identity, individually learnt, let us
learn about privilege and acknowledge the lesser
blessed, in treatment from race, gender, birthplace
and so long as all of these things are developed by
this human race then this incessant pampering is fine.
But hah. At least we have some advantage
on those stupid street lights. If an asteroid
comes rushing down at one place one day,
burning hot, scorching bright, past midnight,
we’ll know better than those silly switches
the meaning of sheer darkness and feel far
more than they, the meaning of the night.
-j. NG
for the sake of flow 