A rant about a manipulative and narcissistic friend...I've probably perpetrated many of same insults against friends.
Could almost renounce my entire childhood
now; as I, the last compacted-spoon-
full of wet-spinach slag, flung headlong
into sod-pile, denounce my hamstrung,
floss-tied friends and the puppet-show cornucopia
intrigues of little-murder-plots
designed for an audience of three,
whose persistent absence betrayed
that they truly were invisible—orbital
satellites—whose subsequent pity sessions
lasted long into the night
until no more than a few
diffuse strains of Tristan un Isolde
were heard in retrospective black-n-white.
And those of us not
already broken through
the wall—a marble
shot from a gun—
were made to stand
for hours listening
to the interminable aching narratives
of our own fatiguing legs,
their strained tendons,
begging us to admit loudly
what we already knew
in our torn bodies—
pickled into stupefaction,
overloaded, as they were,
with someone elses
superfluous screed;
and, wanting only
to leave this time
for good,
while maintaining
our ridiculous, complicit, silence;
while we wasted our precious time,
bodily fluids, one liners and credulity,
attempting to appease a magician
whose gift was to somehow
enmesh all of us
into a magnetized
sparkling fishnet
of cheap reflective lights
and indulge his endless fascination
with everything that he caught
the night before.
Now, it would eternally illuminate
his ongoing myth,
confabulated
from endless shrub-branches of lies
and half-baked theories congealed
in a corn-starch of paranoia;
holding us closely
as if we were all his orbiting moons
and he, our Jupiter,
with its big-red-depthless spot.
This was our deified conduit to truth—
our little mandarin, Ngo Dinh Diem,
endlessly espousing
his self-indulgent, personalisms
while others—not good
enough to join our little group
in the jungles
of a miniaturized,
incestuous, Saigon
(that of-the equatorial-lassitude,
immune-to-the-big-picture, right-in-front-of-us)
would smile politely
and bear as much as they could tolerate
before furtively leaving
out a back stairwell,
looking behind
their own vague shadow's,
as they surreptitiously ran home.
After a time, the drama began to seem
a bit too artificial;
and I suggested that he condense
the long narcissistic screed
of his slow-poison,
into an oily nectar
to be drunk from a shot-glass,
and let us imbibe to our dimly understood
nihilistic oblivion—
or simply leave us alone,
so that we could all go home
and get some sleep.
I left,
later that day
and never
came back.
JZRothstein (Spring) 2012
Poetry by Jeffrey Z Rothstein
Read 567 times
Written on 2013-10-04 at 18:05
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Subalterns
SubalternsCould almost renounce my entire childhood
now; as I, the last compacted-spoon-
full of wet-spinach slag, flung headlong
into sod-pile, denounce my hamstrung,
floss-tied friends and the puppet-show cornucopia
intrigues of little-murder-plots
designed for an audience of three,
whose persistent absence betrayed
that they truly were invisible—orbital
satellites—whose subsequent pity sessions
lasted long into the night
until no more than a few
diffuse strains of Tristan un Isolde
were heard in retrospective black-n-white.
And those of us not
already broken through
the wall—a marble
shot from a gun—
were made to stand
for hours listening
to the interminable aching narratives
of our own fatiguing legs,
their strained tendons,
begging us to admit loudly
what we already knew
in our torn bodies—
pickled into stupefaction,
overloaded, as they were,
with someone elses
superfluous screed;
and, wanting only
to leave this time
for good,
while maintaining
our ridiculous, complicit, silence;
while we wasted our precious time,
bodily fluids, one liners and credulity,
attempting to appease a magician
whose gift was to somehow
enmesh all of us
into a magnetized
sparkling fishnet
of cheap reflective lights
and indulge his endless fascination
with everything that he caught
the night before.
Now, it would eternally illuminate
his ongoing myth,
confabulated
from endless shrub-branches of lies
and half-baked theories congealed
in a corn-starch of paranoia;
holding us closely
as if we were all his orbiting moons
and he, our Jupiter,
with its big-red-depthless spot.
This was our deified conduit to truth—
our little mandarin, Ngo Dinh Diem,
endlessly espousing
his self-indulgent, personalisms
while others—not good
enough to join our little group
in the jungles
of a miniaturized,
incestuous, Saigon
(that of-the equatorial-lassitude,
immune-to-the-big-picture, right-in-front-of-us)
would smile politely
and bear as much as they could tolerate
before furtively leaving
out a back stairwell,
looking behind
their own vague shadow's,
as they surreptitiously ran home.
After a time, the drama began to seem
a bit too artificial;
and I suggested that he condense
the long narcissistic screed
of his slow-poison,
into an oily nectar
to be drunk from a shot-glass,
and let us imbibe to our dimly understood
nihilistic oblivion—
or simply leave us alone,
so that we could all go home
and get some sleep.
I left,
later that day
and never
came back.
JZRothstein (Spring) 2012
Poetry by Jeffrey Z Rothstein
Read 567 times
Written on 2013-10-04 at 18:05
Save as a bookmark (requires login) Write a comment (requires login) Send as email (requires login) Print text
