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Academic Insights for the Thinking World

National poetry month: fairytale of reality

Last week we introduced you to the Buffalo Poets, our special guests for Poetry Month. Today we will present more of their art. Be sure to read last weeks posts also! (Fevers of Artistic Dreams, “Epistemic Purchase” and “The Being.”, Poetical Understanding of Reality and The Buffalo Reading).
Listen to the poem being read by Noah and shakuhachi played by David Acevedo here.

By Noah Levin

Pages told as childhood goes,
imagination was adrift. Forever
tomorrow like eternal timeline
drawn in sand, dare to cross attitude
the only challenge to face. Fairytale reality was truth in future, possibilities
roamed free as mind but the clock
ticked and secretly stole from flesh.

Clock bleeds with each stroke as
crush of hand became harder to
bare. Chapter piled upon chapter,
but wished dream could still be
reality as mind still sailed on open
sea.

Tick-tock goes mind.
Tick,
Tick,
Tick,
Tick goes wasted effort,
Tock goes more to dream.
Onward, ONWARD!

But the hand on the clock welcomed
in new reality, stronger reality as
bled dreams fell from clock – pages
ripped asunder floating in sea of lost
dreams, slowly dripping, dripping.
The wheel of reality crushed mind,
gears grind, clock ticks, system in
place, the book was a lie. Reality
was set in stone and ambition adrift.
The clock bleeds until sea of dreams
claims souls and ship of hope is
fool’s way out.

Book under arm; book held high,
staring at clock I see it was created
by a thousand minds – shriveled
thoughts imagined into reality.
Ticking together, nightmares born to
regulate and steal souls to keep mass
weathered flesh together.

Arms wirr, pace set in stone,
movement still forward, eyesight
stolen; grey is the only normality.
Wither in flesh, wither in mind.
Clockwork patter, it was all still
written, soul sucked into time-
construct to strengthen the dreary
many!

Tick pace, time lags behind in
march – down road conquering high.
A shout is heard: All hands to the
ship! Control the wheel, set course,
set sail, set mind, set depth, set heels
in place!

Mutiny your own destiny:
Sail on through the clock!

Shatter the arms in mirad parts until
shattered gears stand at odds to parts
lay in waste and tick tock will not
wince. Chapters still pile high
weighing down as sharpened mind
creates new weave. Supposed ship
adrift is now at helm and book
under arm remains guide to dreams.
Sail on now, with clock in proper
place as northern star in sky above
and withered mind no longer toll to
pay. Sail on! Sail ON!

Recent Comments

  1. Nico Kyo

    I really like the rythm and repetition of the ticking clock in the poem. It really reminded me of the first track of The Last Poets self titled album (whose name i probably can’t say here). Not so much that the themes are the same, but the rythym and immediacy are the same.

    Also your last essay, (your call to poets) made me think of ferlenghetti’s Populist Manifesto- which is a similar call to poets, asking people to stand up and really write, just speak out because they have to- not because they’re trying to fulfill some kind of image of what they feel art or poetry should be.

    I like that all your work has made me think of this stuff, not because i feel you’re taking from these influences, but because your work reminds me of them, or brings them to my mind? And that’s pretty cool. So i just wanted to leave these thoughts behind, and maybe some else will say something and a dialogue can get going.

  2. Linda Sues

    I enjoyed the thought behind this poem, for me it was reality versus dreams, we spend so much time in our heads with hopes and dreams, and what we think others are thinking and so on…and create our own problems. We focus on the hopes and dreams of the future while time moves on, and really we only have the reality of now. Very thought provoking poem…and I liked the intensity of the poem…and the truth of it as I understood it. For me it was simply that I’ve been disappointed millions of times and misled by my own thinking, dreams and suppositions, when in fact time and reality marches on with its’ truth, sometimes painful sometimes not.

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