Saturday, January 31, 2015

Scott Thomas Outlar- A Poem


To and Fro
  
One step outside
where the wind whistles and howls,
blistering my naked ears –
I’ve not worn headphones today;
I want to hear the agony
along with the ecstasy
of every sound the dying earth makes
as Winter scrapes away the leaves
and creates skeletons all around.

One step onto the street,
paved in dark asphalt murder
with white lines of ghost blood
running straight as an arrow down the middle –
that’s where I stay, in balance,
in rhythm, with harmonic gestures
guiding each footfall as I dance
through the days of desolation and destruction.

One step onto the main road,
machines of raging thunder
roaring by at a steady clip
upon black rubber bullets to nowhere –
a smog in the air, a gasoline gulp,
a hazy fog of collective consciousness
hanging palpably above the scene
carrying all the lost dreams and remorse
of a million daily commuters
dragging their half-dead carcasses back home
where maybe there’s a lukewarm plate of dinner
waiting on the table for them to scarf down
before hitting the hay and sleeping away the pain.

One step into the park
where the air is fresh and vital,
oxygenating my blood, clearing my mind
and detoxifying my polluted lungs.
Walk by the lake where turtles
bath in the sun upon rocks
and ducks leisurely paddle along
with orange webbed feet beneath the water.
Birds chirp in the trees
but get drowned out by a plane above
as it pours out trails of toxic whatever –
so much for the fresh oxygen,
soon enough it’ll be laced with heavy metals
for a neuron path lobotomy.

One step into the woods,
escaping under the cover of a tall rise forest.
Shade from the sun
and a brief respite
from the workaday madness and the incessant drumbeat
toward a job, toward a war, toward a drug,
toward a gadget, toward a television screen,
toward an election, toward a sales-pitch savior,
toward whatever new, trendy, topnotch,
fashionable fad has stolen the hearts and minds
of a zombie population this particular week.

One step at a time,
retracing my path
back to where I began –
nothing seems to matter anymore.
I’ve simply seen too much of it all,
time and time again, ad infinitum
through the eternal recurrence
as the cycles of history replay on repeat.
Not ennui or apathy.
Not enlightenment or nirvana.
Just detached observation
of a terrible and awesome existence
moving one step at a time
and going somewhere.


Bio:
Scott Thomas Outlar dances beneath the stars to the sweet sound of nature's celestial song, laughing all the while at life's existential problems, and waiting for the next round of chaos to commence.  He recently took the plunge into the world of social media by creating 17numa.wordpress.com where more of his writing can be found.

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