Allow me to really mess with your heads, friends. "Closer: Quarantine Journals from a Parallel World" is a poem, sure, but it's more than that.
Much more.
There's over a thousand words here, for one thing, utilizing Joy Division's Closer album song titles to distinguish sections; to lead us through the hell to come (at the time, in that parallel world). The timing is the other.
This poem was written March 19-20, 2020.
Yes, March 19-20, 2020, exactly six years ago today. A few days after the company I formerly worked for sent us home, stating it might be a while before we get back to work...because Covid had sunk its teeth into the nation, and the world.
As you read this, remember that info. I've maybe changed a handful of words since it was initially written. It came out like this, white hot and bleak as Hell. As bleak as this goes--and it is truly a bleak speculation--the present state of the world, though much different than what the poem posits, actually confirms elements within the poem, about those in a position of power. And how they do not give a fuck about anything but their own vile dreams.
*I had a note after the poem, but I'm leaving that out to let the poem stand on its own.
Anyway...
*
Closer: Quarantine Journals from a Parallel
World
(written
March 19-20/2020)
By
John Claude Smith
All I ever want is to be close to you again—
The Atrocity Exhibition
The ineffectual leaders who think themselves overlords
Gods
--gelatinous slime, scum scrapped from the bowels of
humanity, reptilian and cold-blooded:
Frozen--
Deemed the evidence inconsequential
But if their minions needed reassurance
Lies would be the method of protocol
As usual
Those of us with a bit of intelligence sensed the
ripple in the life-waves and understood
Sharks can smell blood from miles away
The travesty played out daily until it became obvious
the evidence had merit
It was already too late.
Isolation
One on one with myself for the foreseeable future
A future in question
foreseen or obliterated by ignorance
Apathy
Not mine
I’m sticking to self-imposed quarantine in a room
about the size of my back pocket
This will not end well.
Passover
After too many weeks having surrendered to the malaise
of hibernation
We are shaken from beneath the rocks of maddening seclusion
and into the heart of hope
Rebirth
A sign that things will improve
As filtered through malevolent leaders sowing aberrant
ideologies
we can only wonder as to the foundation
--how can anybody think in such deplorable terms
during times as bleak as these? --
Having spent time with myself
I need contact
Conversation in the flesh
—something,
anything—
But in what form?
The world is changing—the world has changed-- and
continues to change
But this change is mutation
The plague wavers
Yet reshapes itself as well
And sinks its fangs into humanity
Not willing to let go
Draining us of purpose
While the sycophants celebrate in drunken
Hedonistic revelry
I know those running the show
Have other plans…
My wariness is a crutch I will lean on until it snaps.
Colony
Knowing this much
I become a colony unto myself
A different shade of isolation
I am the ruler of the flesh-land of me
While the despicable tyrants continue to drone on and
on
From the television screen that never fades to black
Even as I know I’ve turned it off repeatedly
Yet there the smiling monsters are
High and mighty and driven by deception
The fabrications draped over the nation like Christmas
lights
A wreath of colors like an ever-patient noose.
A Means to an End
When sanity is embraced by the smirking malice of
madness
I find myself on the kitchen floor with a steak knife
in my hand
Tears polishing the tiles
Praying to a god I know exited this circus long ago
Weakness is the only reason I am still here.
Heart and Soul
I awaken days later on the carpet of my tiny bedroom
The air smells different
I’d left the window open and am refreshed by the
breeze ruffling the curtains
I slowly rise
stand naked in front of the window as so many others
are doing
our smiles emit a sound
a hum that can only be thought of as joy
The sound reverberates through each of us
I listen deeper and pick up the strains from the
television I’d left on
The television that never sleeps
A vaccine has been forged in the dark soul of this
horror
I stare at the heavens and wonder if God is staring
back
I wonder if this was the biggest test we will ever
have to endure as a species
Then I hear another sound
Like tinfoil crinkling and the crackle of flesh
burning
--the smell is present as well—
And realize it is all for naught
Those in charge are still in charge and I can only
fathom as to what wickedness awaits
Distortions of hope are now sideshow entertainment.
Twenty-Four Hours
We are told by the evil that has exacerbated this charade
the “vaccine” is ready for all
No strings attached
Their smiles are insidious
Their methods have always been vile
These corrupt puppet masters
But the thought of stepping out into the world again
Out of my apartment-like-cell
Is too strong to halt my step as I join the line like
everybody else
And take the needle with the poison into my arm
Illusions of freedom cultivated by plague demons are
what we’ve accepted
Fools.
The Eternal
A month after what is known as the Second Coming
A curious designation the sinister conmen have stolen
from the Christian bible
That they use for toilet paper and subtle mind-control
Their followers no better than dogs lapping up the
dogma as if it were law
Barking their approval
Those like myself realize
There is no rehabilitation for avaricious greed of the
magnitude
a few dismal blights on the face of this planet have
courted
The Second Coming was of our stolen freedom
Their spiel
Their rhetoric
The lies lies lies lies lies
Imprinted on our minds
Bruises tattooed on every thought
Freewill rendered obsolete
Narcistic reaffirmation as to their mighty standing
unto themselves
As if they were blessing us with existence
And the followers still cheered
But even on the screen I could see the bloodless
realization of their cowardice
The white-faced shock of realization and surrender
While I would never give in.
Decades
The seconds would crawl
The minutes would mock
The hours would chime cheerfully
The months would meander
The years would lengthen
Five, ten, fifteen…
Fifty, one hundred
Two-hundred, five hundred
A thousand
Infinite
And we would all be exactly where we were right now
Locked within rooms
Locked within ourselves
Because the vaccine was nothing of the sort
Just as the plague was nothing of the sort
Simply two steps in a course of action by a handful of
sociopaths
—lunatics; devils—
Meant to capture humanity in the palms of small hands
and small minds
With ubiquitous omnipotence as their only goal
The vaccine had planted the seed of immortality
The final nail in the coffin of what might once have
been a hopeful species
Immortality had become our curse, our reason to dream
of death
Meandering without salvation
Stuck in the in-between
Stuck
--please hold, your message is very important to us--
The television volume buzzes louder
As faux idols prance in garments crafted from twinkling
diamonds
Glistening gold
And blood
A cockroach scampers across the wood floor of the
kitchen
I cherish its company
All I ever wanted was to be Closer to you
again…
I pray to a god I know was never more than frivolous
fantasy
That hope suffers as I do
as we do
Alone
Until the sun turns to ash
Or the earth loses its orbit and hurtles into oblivion
Or my heart simply explodes.
*
I would usually say I hope you enjoyed that, but enjoyment might not be the appropriate response.
In forthcoming blog posts I'll be digging into details about my soon to be published novel, Our Savage Anatomies, among many more poems, short fiction, observations, reviews, meanderings...
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