Distopia 
 

Staring at the wraiths, which float beyond my vision,
my polar eyes melt into their sockets.
I sit dormant, gathering dust,
in hope that I might form my own desert
and in fear that to disrupt the inertia
would propel me, reeling, into the unknown.

The majestic sofa, jewel of my apathy,
beckons me to behold the television's horde
of all things generic and aberrant,
canned laughter and bottled nausea.

My dwindled soul compels me now
to lay to rest the smoking pistol of my lethargy,
which claimed the lives of so many hours of the day,
casting hourglass sand into the tide.

Wiping the scum off my window,
I glance toward the bloodied heavens
to find that the flight of so many paper numbers
has torn the sky back to its ethereal skeleton.

The streets below are faintly lit
by the half-extinguished spirits of fortune's casualties.
Precious metals running through their fingers
sustain the hardy mettles growing through their souls.

Dispossessed, the lady of the lake resides
in a shallow, stagnant pool beneath a bridge,
clutching corroded Excalibur in her wispy arms,
an ancient relic of yesterday's utopia
(from before the round table was squared off
and enshrouded by the pedestrian, monotone undead).

The overwhelming futility
of restoring unhinged Arcadia
laps over me, devouring my strength,
like the indiscriminate, pulsing tide.

And so I dissolve into the shadows,
a plaid chameleon, clinging to the couch,
tuning my mind back to the cathode void,
while the television glares at me from its throne.
 
 

(C) Copyright 1998
Nick Kellaway 
All Rights Reserved