Rachel and I wrote this poem while both describing two separate objects (neither of us knew the other person’s object while writing).  After finishing the poem we both tried to guess each other’s objects (guesses and actual objects are at the end…)  My lines are in italics and Rachel’s are in normal text.  This was good fun so try it!

           

           

Identify Indefinite (Written in collaboration with Rachel Granberg)

 

Mechanical strangulation limits my reach

Carrying the unguided and

Misplaced power to identify

Indefinite lives beyond a sphere,

Endless objects at a finger away.

Gaping holes that go unnoticed

Teachings that dispel no truth

All encompassed by those who

Advertise apathy.

 

It is baffling to find such restriction in utter

simplicity.

Yet I am bound; suffocating for Dead.

Careful to move slowly and anxious to run.

Run from it—

This message carries none but uninherited

            Unsubstantiated philosophy.

A ghetto of molten green trees and

Empty, decaying, forgotten benches

Is lucky to survive.

 

Lucky if I am saved.

Unfortunate and disregarded isolation-

Infinitely watching; never touching.

Restrained, gagged anticipation.

I am detained indefinitely.

 

So stroke your hand across my neck

            And down my leg and

Close your eyes to the reality

Surrounding this facism.

           

            Untie myself

Liberate hostility and entrapment

            And run.             

I will flee or escape-but

I will still return to suffocation again.

Your passivity will likely go unnoticed in your own home

            But it’s seeping is nearly as

            Dangerous

As this blur of preservatives,

Constantly on the offensive.

 

4 May 2004

 

Emma’s Guess: a dying plant in the corner of a room in a house

Rachel’s Guess: a car

Emma’s Object: a leash

Rachel’s Object: a television