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In the Other Land (Where everything is opposite to what we know) Everyone is equal and even God is just a person And if she even knew she made that place (or this) She’s quite forgotten Shadows are powerfully, painfully real And no form of energy will function there. Ghosts move about with the utmost ordinariness While solid creatures shiver, lonely, though There is neither heat nor light Nor cold nor darkness as we know Strange shapes drift In a regularity Known only to them, slow across the sky Colorless A few, the smallest, plainest ones Make artifacts, souvenirs of use For advancing art and science and the like The rest would only terrify And must be hidden out of sight There are voices there, on occasion In a language quite unknown—if one can call A ‘language’ that which never repeats, has no Reference points and is not meant for ears Time itself is baffled, quite fully closed Round about itself If one had ordinary tools of measure, What would be reported Would be infinities Gravity off the chart. Although you can move about if you imagine That all around you is smooth and wherever You want to go is down And you can slide there as If on a sheet of glass Obsidian stone But there is nowhere to go, not really And wandering about Is the same as if you stayed put It’s a bit like desert, strange figures rising Half buried, monumental Their meaning and function deliberately, Inevitably lost There are creatures as well They could meet but seldom do for there is Nothing lonelier in this place Than togetherness Similarly, there is no point to doing anything For whatever you might think of to do is already Done, and furthermore proven pointless To be more dignified you can imagine a house To sit in, or a seaside If it’s ocean you want, however, You’ll have to bear it all about you To your neck, salt on your tongue and eyebrows But of course you’ll never drown—isn’t even a Possibility It’s immortality, in a way, though no one Ever stays long Try to declare your being And you’re gone at once Sometimes, mostly, you see no one, Though signs are there Far on the landscape are the flags, The huts, the towers each one builds to his fancy If you prefer cities, these are perfectly allowed Cities with sidewalk cafés And ghostly crowds Dining beside rivers which never flow Running their course, empires coming and going In a heartbeat Sometimes, myself, by a window I sit in a rocking chair and just listen To ghostly rumblings, to wars and rumors of wars As I listen, more and more, I become convinced of something I’ve suspected: That I’m the only one Whoever is and was I’ve made this world, simply to house a soul Simply to breathe, and be, my short Miserable ticks Till I...am not by John Telos Copyright © John Telos Inspiration: A tribute to all of you who told me you share my dual citizenship in The Other Land |
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All Poems by John Telos: Trickle Down Economics, I Look Back, Exposed, The Torch, Beauty, Racing, You're The One, Suicide Bomber, A Flower in the Field, The Opposite Sex, Hold Fast, Gaping Wounds and Clipping Coupons, I Close My Eyes, The Other Land (Depression Part I), I Can Dream, Grant Me, The Deepest Things, For Lack of Love, Profiling, God is..., First Summer In The Country, Tell Me, Child of The Revolution (Part I), Eyes of Night, F'd Up, Vietnam To Gulf War Gap, An Army of One, Sex Is Bad, The Madman's Song, Child of The Revolution (Part II), 1984 Redux, Blackout, Sugar and Spice, Jesus I'm Bored, I am Broken, too, Rush, Would You Like Fries With That Life?, The Other Land (Depression Part II), Ghost Dance, Q and A, Downsize Blues, Can I get some help here?, No Fly Zone (Manic Depression Part I), You Were I, Freestyle, Hinge, Ghost Dance II, god is a word you should shake with your fist, come on, you know you want to read this, Blistered Kiss, You Do The Math, Pick Your Poison, This, Censor This, Ruach, On My Birthday..., ONE DAY, AMEN, Best Fren-Frens, Live Always,