Argument

The Tyranny of Symbols (First Poem of 2023)

/ michaelkilman / Leave a comment

Happy New Year everyone! I hope your year is starting well. Here’s the first poem I’ve written in 2023, accompanied by some AI generated Art (generated based on lines from the poem).

Generated in MidJourney with lines from the poem

A Tyranny of Symbols

We are like catapults casting symbols across a chasm

At war with abstractions

Where common sense is not so common

And the least common denominator is always left in the back alley to rot in the fifth of our own making.

For what reason did we choose the sounds and muscles that make the word love,

Or truth,

Or creature,

Or tide?

For language is a tide,

With words in and out of fashion

Eb, and flow,

Push, and pull,

All tides have a time of their choosing

And yet so many choose to attack the waters with fist and blade and hate,

Until knuckles are bloody at the long lingering task of

Control

Order

Sameness

Identity

What symbol flung upon your body or taken by choice has ever brought you wholeness

Instead of fracture?

I

Am

This.

You

Are

That.

Lines in the sand for which we dare not cross

We collect symbols to adorn our naked bodies

Rather than recognizing our rapturous reality,

That

We

Are

Star

Stuff

We fling like catapults,

Into the dark,

Hoping for illumination

But instead,

We become,

Weapons of mutually assured destruction.

We set words on fire,

Arguing to unburden ourselves

Shift the load from our shoulders

And weigh down another

To slow their speech,

Their motion,

Their agency.

Grasp the sand,

Hold it tight,

Do not let slip a single grain

Or risk

Unmasking

The arbitrary

The finger pointing to the moon,

Is not the moon.

The Argument (Poetry)

/ michaelkilman / Leave a comment
The Argument ©Michael Kilman 2022

The argument

There they are!

A few glimmering words, circling the inside of my skull

I reach… Pluck… Pluck… Pluck

Butterflies churn and excitement grows stirring me from near slumber

Something new to be born as the stars circle overhead.

Forget it.

You cannot grasp them.

Your tongue is swollen and thick from too much use

Your body aches from a endless maddening hustle

And your fingers dare not toil at their sacred assemblage

Liar!

Look at how they shimmer!

They are bright in the dark that they will arrange themselves as oceans often do

They caress me in all the right ways

And I long for their knowledge, their truth

I cannot ignore their cultivation.

Weep then,

Weep for hours on end for they will not flow from your lips or fingertips  

They will leave you a widow, after a lifetime of promises,

Moaning at all your loss

And then, kick you to the shadows where you will linger long waiting for a promised sun

That never shines

But I must!

For what else is to be done now at this late hour?

The clock maddens my mind with it’s ticking taunts

What fruit could this debate lay naked and open

It is best to embrace when the eyes will not close

I submit to their shimmer and ally myself to their cause.

Blocked

That is where you will find yourself,

Outside the door of an illustrious mansion, hearing the clambering and laughter of guests.

But with no key for entry. In vein you will jostle the doorknob.

Lusting after them with no passage.

You chase in vein fool, how many have you plucked?

Oh my good sir,

I have plucked them all in argument.

I have found peace in your taunts.

They are settled, nestling against my heart.

And they are alive.