I Swear I'll Recharge You.

By Raventongue

Mon, 19 Mar 2012
  • 752 reads
4 comments
 

Rage, rage against the mechanical ersatz of our lives
A bunch of stupid sound and fury, senseless like a war
Fumbling, erratic, delusional- drunken dumbshow!
The Surface, the Vapid, a literal mind-number, parade of illusion and soul-buggering newspeak!

Fuck their pleasures! Me, I seek joy!
Fuck your makeup- let me touch skin!
Fuck equations. Life, make me wise.
Fuck the houseplants, give me a friend!

Haven't you ever just stood up and spat and said,
"This life tastes like sawdust, like bone-saws, like dust!

And the thousand-yard starers like livestock for Moloch
This one plump to be consumed, this one pretty for display
Deadstock.
Every man and woman has a place, even me. They want my soul for fuel.
Got a piece of it once and they can't forget the taste like dogs and blood
Maybe a literal arm and a leg would buy my freedom
Maybe freedom's just a mirage in front of desolation

You're lucky if it only makes you ugly on the outside- there's the difference.
Life Herself scars, society mutilates.
Viva La Resistance, ha, right?"

I'm beaten. Defeated. A member of betrayed generation.
Descended from the selfish, the silent and the lost.
Likewise, the Beat Poets weren't referring to rhythm.

They were talking about being tired.

Only recharge I ever find is in being held close, like a child. Not much affection around these days, true connection is rebellion. I think we need more dissent. Regenerate our generation. I'm so tired.

There's fatigue to the point of pain, so pervasive. Inescapable.
Stamped all over my bones, the shameful uniform of the sentimental.
Pressing me into the ground like a call home.
I want to sink into it, like a soft bed.
A warm grave.
There's more than one way to be ready to die.

How much rage can someone bury before it turns to depression?
How much crap to swallow before an infection develops.
I sound a bit like a psychologist now, "What's the magic formula?" (There isn't one, you bastard.)
I've got a price, yeah, but you're not going to like it; I'll only sell myself to buy the lives of others.
Is that self-destructive to you, doctor?

I know I'm beaten, but I'm going in anyway. Moral imperative.
Hold me close, dear, in the name of Life Herself. I swear I'll recharge you.
Hope we've learned to smile, to crack jokes at knifepoint.
To feel alive is to face execution.

Wouldn't miss it for the world.

Certificate 15
Three Kinds of Heart Poems
Spiritual

Comments

Submitted by Florian on
A refreshing change from the happy clappy, excellent and scary in its intensity - which may explain the lack of comments.

Submitted by Raventongue on
Well thank you! It came to me in a naturally different form from my usual style, and I wasn't sure if it'd be well recieved. In light of that, very much appreciate your comment.

Submitted by FranziLudovico on
This deserves more comments. "to crack jokes at knifepoint" - if you ever become famous, this will no doubt be inked onto your fans' forearms in typewriter font :D (is knifepoint all one word though?) I love the references to bones and dust, they're images I use a lot. Makes us think of our essential mortality and the futility of it all - yay! The sense of weariness you've created contrasts well with the anger to bring about an impression of frustration - the speaker wants to do something about how much everything sucks, but they are too damned tired. I'm always sceptical about how well a reference to Orwell can work so I don't really like the mention of newspeak. Seems like a cliché. "Soul-buggering" I love though! The second stanza is absolute perfection, especially the last line. The first three and last two stanzas had the most impact for me - the middle, as is often the case with poetry, loses its footing occasionally. I don't know what your stuff is usually like, as this is the first of your work I've read, but if you don't normally write like this, you should!

Submitted by Raventongue on
Thank you so much! The image of those tattoos really makes me want to become famous! (I do have a tendency to pull compound words out of my butt ;D). The mood behind this poem is a complex one and I'm definitely glad that it's effectively communicated. Took me forever to find a word there before settling on "newspeak"- perhaps "soul-buggering salesmen" or "soul-buggering brainwash"? I'll keep that in mind when the poetry muse strikes me next. The sentence structure here is new to me, the word choice and most of the flow is not.