Disassociative

He was looking

for complex answers

in all the wrong

places.

There are simple bodies

in the skies,

white harbingers

of a darker disguise:

a day to bring solace.

He brought his person

under bright lights, and I

looked on unharmed.

They are two people talking

at all times. A third, the

self, decides

on the sound.

There are complex bodies

underground.

-the ambassador

Progeny Song, Dreamt

I & my brood blaspheme.

A hungry son and I

wandered, a sundry toll was

kept apace by matheme.

He did not warn of wagging,

nor lagging of the soul;

a mind of time behind.

He should have kept it

simple. The genetic toil

to an end. For me, he is

still gliding; I must believe

it. In every instance

the eyes will be questioned,

subjects of a cruel & quiet

prince (a mind of time behind).

In this we see a structure, unnatural.

A constructed bending

of the beams of light.

In this we see a structure.

-the ambassador

X

It is often odd to think

that without us there

would be less than nothing

here and yet everything

but us would still appear,

and probably (a stretch,

perhaps) a lot more oxygen.

So I keep a pet illusion

near, I have named him

real, but he is only a looking

glass.

By which I mean he is inside himself.

It must make it

hard to breathe.

Ah, but the clock is bent

on precision and turning

this day over. A virtual

subversion of the plot.

-the ambassador

Logic, Religion, Dolphins

I am, by nature, analytical. This is not to say that I'm always entirely reasonable or rational. I do, however, tend to look at things closely, to attempt to see what lurks below the surface. I realized recently that my poetry is an attempt - subconscious until now - to recontextualize beauty for myself. Actually, it has become something of an obsession for me to take horrifying objects, events, etcetera, and to use language itself to bend them into something different - perhaps even something worth looking at for a long while - something to, as my analytical side insists, figure out.

I'm also deeply interested in the human animal. More precisely, I'm interested in the human as animal. Far too often a gap is posited between the human and the natural - and, if you've noticed, we as a species are always trying to justify our belief in that gap. "Oh, it's our consciousness of the self that sets us apart." Not so. Some primates recognize themselves in mirrors. Is it, perhaps, language? I will grant that the range of language humans have attained is impressive. Dolphins also have an extremely complex language - for it can be called nothing else - with which they express a range of emotions - for they can be called nothing else. Before any attempt at scientific justification of our unique standing in the universe, we turned to religion. "Yes, we are the Chosen People," said the Jews. But, then, weren't Muslims also the Chosen People? Weren't Christians, in turn, also Chosen? Don't all religions believe that they have the truth, and that everyone else - benign as their intentions might be - are simply wrong?

Well, I have a tendency to believe fact. I suppose it is a fault I can blame on nature. Nevertheless, it is this interest in the human animal - and all the beauty, shame, ugliness, importance, impotence, reality, and unreality that is inherent in it - that drives my poetry.

None of this is any more than one possible lens through which to view my words - because words is all I has to play with, as someone (I'm not sure who) once wrote. It could also be the ramblings of a would-be poet who has had one too many drinks on a Friday night.

-the ambassador

A Summary

Who is judged thus?

Be it an appearance

of mortal man? So the anger

speaks, the augur seeks,

the craven weep of mercy. By

rights, on whom the mantle

still obsidian rests, attest

not to shadows what was

seen.

It is a departure.

The setting straight of a crooked tale.

No more as orator,

in lieu a craft of subtler stead.

A waking of the worms

inside a head.

And so, a temporal adieu:

no more ask of whence

a body came, not

of why a soldier laughs or how

these bones collapse,

but of how a life resumes.

-the ambassador