Sixty-Fifth Entry

Here's my poem:

I DECIDED

There is no blood spattered on Doric columns.
The faces of the elderly have not yet been erased.
The elderly are not slowly climbing the tower’s steps.

Surely the lives of the young are not different.
The young do not believe their lives to be virtual or insignificant.
There is no blood affixed to the trunk of the oak.

What I am is virtual and insignificant.
Who I am talking to is the trunk of the oak.
It is cumbersome to keep the air in my chest.

I am muttering about the air and the words escape.
My relatives are not the type of people to sit on the beach.
There is a thin partition between me and my relatives.

The opacity of the sky makes seeing the neon implausible.
I have been many places, seen few.
I impose myself as a guest on the beach.

I show them my tattoo of a neon rectangle.
I am given white flowers and am allowed to stay.
The young consider themselves native to nowhere.

The elderly clothe themselves in their traveled distance.
A typical week will include slumber and scent.
An ocean is quiet when it wears a shroud.

The virtue of the ocean is the weight and the volume.
In a haze I can peer out and see the blue towers.
The sketch will not convey the virtues of the ocean.

I could cheat and explain it.
My mouth would swell as the air escaped.
I like to think about details.

It is plausible that the young do not consider details.
In a rustic setting, the young may forget the details.
Years from now, there will nothing but details.

From afar, I can see the other side of the desert.
I then throw the amassed accoutrements into the sand.
It is always easy to find yourself swimming.

The elderly have foreseen this.
The tower in the desert is majestic and white.
For a moment I climb out of the fountain.

I design a tower in my sketchbook.
I refer to it in conversation.
The desert is central to the understanding of youth.

I am sketching the top of the tower up.
The tower is reflecting off of my eye.
I am speaking deceptively about details.

The bizarre thing about the ocean is what’s inside it.
Conveniently I am at the bottom.
The young do not care to know the terminology.

The elderly are content to remain immobile.
I swam to the bottom to find the foundation.
I found a society in its place.

I simply looked and I found it.
But it is harmful to anticipate it.
When I left I was bordering a woodland glen.

Including myself there was nobody there.
But I found ruins of an elderly civilization.
I aspire simultaneously to be brash and wise.

The civilization was left unfinished.
The ruins of the civilization appeared uncertain.
The ruins were waiting there for someone.

Perhaps when the person came the ruins might leave.
I leaned on the sill of an ancient window.
I misunderstood the pebbled trail.

I assumed the ruins were almost a tower.
Whatever was there had no obvious purpose.
The inside of the tower is empty and tall.

Standing at the top, I could feel the rush of popularity.
I found closed curtains and a comfortable throne.
I pretended these objects were my new companions.

One had an annoying laugh, the other a sympathetic cough.
I quickly became sick of their politeness.
I stole a carriage and rode hard into the city.

The skyscrapers shunted out like stumps in the dusk.
Finally I found a computer lab.
With proper indentation I began my history of the elderly.

The perfection of the city is that it grows as it dies.
The event that sparks a city’s birth is interesting.
I also like colored illustrations of cities.

And skyscrapers aren’t so bad, like mottled towers.
The elderly sit at the top, sounding practical and correct.
The throne was well-decorated, all in all very nice.

I climbed up the tower even though there was no reason to.
My breathing intensified as I reached the precipice.
I waited anxiously for the arrival of the flying machine.

I beheld the bottle of liquor in my hand with amazement.
I was wholly unaware of its existence.
It had slept unseen in my hand all this time.

Years later the pilot descended from a cloud.
The tower had been re-plastered and I was a bearded ragamuffin.
In fact the tower and the city lay in ruins.

The pilot had no discernable imagination.
He shouted at me when I dropped the bottle of liquor.
He scowled while we continued our idiosyncratic ascent.

All told the entire trip had been a delicious bore.
Including the surly pilot and his secret schemes.
And our visit to the clouds which ended with much exhaustion.

In fact the white tower was a most awful place.
I spent much of my time there sitting on the curb.
I ignored the virginal maidens spinning about the horizon.

They chatted with the pilot for about twenty minutes.
I drifted off like a genius.
I appeared to slip through a hidden hole.

I plummeted towards land, limbs flailing about.
The moment you perceive the end of your life is the most fun.
For refuge I pulled my shirt over my head and hummed.

I landed with a wonderful smack on some nation.
I got up and glanced around for my next endeavor.
I found myself in a startling fiery chasm.

Ripped from the pages of our planet’s infancy.
With a representation of a facsimile of the ultimate evil.
I didn’t enjoy it and I was covered in germs.

I made an attempt at looking scared.
I crossed a hot catwalk suspended above flames.
I thank my young friends for being discrete.

I borrowed a trident and a demon costume from work.
At the gate, I found a lost soul and asked her
for directions, given this purgatory’s sprawling nature.

Before she could answer I wriggled out a window.
I formed a shapeless mass like a mercury ball.
I left a suitable tip and found a ride.

The sky had an unhealthy tinge that I liked.
I wanted to find a grotesque way of life.
If it’s too clean I sort of lose my edge.

I also don’t like windows with too much sun.
The afternoon blue is a lot like a soft kiss.
The youth don’t find me imposing anymore.

When I was born, the elderly were still kind of young.
I was altered over the years and got much larger.
Adults are taller, and are wizened by their elevation.

Another thing I can’t stand is the weather.
Together the young and the elderly combine to form everybody.
Actually I’m not sure about foreign people.

When I was a certain age I was given a vehicle.
I had glass lenses to regulate my vision.
This is before I really fell in love with shadows.

I wasn’t concerned with the meaning of things.
I went to high school and slept alone in bed.
My head enlarged as I got older.

At that point sleeping alone wasn’t unbearable.
Years later I was polishing my laurels.
Even as a young man I felt I possessed a certain wit.

After my travels I missed arguing with my parents.
I was ready to begin gaining several fortunes.
I tried to and weathered the ensuing disasters.

Then I became elderly, rattling around my old home.
I’d like to think I peacefully stood down.
Life became something for others to investigate.

I tried to enjoy the September of old age.
I became sullen and impervious to all happiness.
I think I might have missed the point all this time.

Was I really available for adventure this entire time?
I went on multiple quests and gained many treasures.
I puzzled over the mysteries of science and got dumped.

I traveled the world and through the great beyond.
These adventures made me cross and tense.
My presence never seemed to change people.

My adolescence was a bit of an adventure.
Now I am dead, unwilling to live anymore.
Events I have seen have colored my overall opinion.

I wrote about much of it but it got smudged.
My parents thought me ingenious for surviving this way.
Past death, I’m not sure where else I could go.

It’s apparent this is meant to be the end in some way.
I’ve reviewed my life and it’s satisfactory.
It’s easy to stay composed at the end.

I’m a professional of sorts.
I won many decorations from some country.
I am dead so I see no open alternative.

After all this I’ve become unfashionable.
I’ve heard too many words at different volumes.
Hopefully there was some sort of pattern to it.

Hopefully I didn’t interfere with important actions.
I only did what was in my nature.