Original Poem - The Revolt of Tuesday (or How I Lost Confidence in Words and Turned Inward for Answers Instead)

You spoke the truth, I realised,
In years stretched further than the past.
You dug a small, shallow grave
For a small, shallow mind,
And then buried it at sea
To prove your knowledge of irony.

You accepted failure under a pseudonym,
Disguised sadness with glasses of champagne,
And nobody spoke of yesterday
More than twice.
Cravings came and gripped your hand.
Cravings went and you wiped your brow.
But still you lit that candle,
Every night at quarter to twelve.

One morning I heard you say to your soul,
"Settle down, substitutes,
Your restlessness unnerves me."
And I had to go to my paper pad
And write your name.
Suffocate the blankness
With a decoration of you.

Pedantic proxies
Followed you to the mirror,
Perpetuating your image
And you did not laugh.
Instead you gathered your wits
And placed them in a vase.
Watched them wilt without pressure,
While rhetorical questions
Tapped at your shoulder.

I cried that day
For the way you held your head so high.
In shambolic reference
To your marmoreal thoughts.
And nobody believed you
When you said the trees were dying.
They were too intent on unveiling
Your paradoxical subterfuge.
And at this you said nothing,
But thought of it as a bonus.

Somewhere I heard
A caricature of you
Being summoned playfully
By troll-like mountains.
And I wondered, what is it
That would tilt a gaze such as yours
To the opposite horizon?
You would never tell me.
An idiosyncrasy far removed
From your psychosomatic individuality.

And have you found paradise
In your puerile chaos?
And discovered new exuberance
In mutated metaphors?
You try to quell your passions
As an icy curmudgeon,
And all the while the ransom
For integrity is rising.

Shapeless pragmatics
Steal past your mind,
Like flighty jailbirds
At the dead of night.
And nobody spoke of any difference
When it first started happening.
Erroneous enthusiasm
Being all consuming.

You praised insipid carnality
With a clap of your hands,
And its rhythmic simplicity
Pleasured you.
Until its rhythmic monotony
Ceased to stir your senses.
And you clapped to warm your hands
While the birds flew away.

I have wondered on occasion
If your sleeping state troubles you,
Or if you long for your dreams
To become a reality.
Do you have a happy life?

And when the zephyrs become stagnant
Over Magadha and Kosala,
Does infinity become malignant
And scream to be released?
And would you ever see me
Even though what I say
Has no precious value?
Or do you regard me as time-waster,
Because you said a writer
Is of the most fruitless profession...
His tools for expressing emotions
Being merely words.

I cannot see your image in my mind
If I try,
Although your fake felicity
Has burned my retina.
It blurs my vision.
Perhaps some day I will ask you
To recapitulate,
Why it is you were born.
And this time someone else will hear you
And I will discuss with them the questions
To be used in referendum,
Of which you will not participate.

Instead you shall read it in newspapers,
While you continue your cadenza.
And strict psychoanalysis
Will not change your tune,
Because you do not realise
It is you
Who is singing.

Poem by @johleen
Photograph by @johleen