Bibliofreakblog

FreeVerse: Penthouse View

FreeVerse is a day late this week.  Oops.  But, Cara is still hiatusing, so there’s no linky anways.  But it occured to me that I should still post a poem, and I chose one of my own.  

I’ve been doing some filing of my old writing and came across one of my favorite poems I ever wrote.  I was about 16 or 17 when I wrote it.

It’s about the intersection of religion and modern society, particularly sexuality and consumerism.  It gets kinda hazy in the middle, and I’m not sure what I’m really talking about there, or at least it isn’t clear.  Still though, the only changes I’ve ever made is splitting it up into sections, as it was originally written as one long stanza.

“Penthouse View” by J.T. Oldfield

I.
Engulfed in this
Teenaged room of
Collective unconscious
We lay our own baggy eyes
At our own weary feet
While through the window
Sun dripping clouds
make uninhibited love
To the sky.
And the stereo outside
Blasts soundless directions
Of archetypal
Rejuvenation
Of free-flowing brain plasma.
And on the primitive stone table,
Which radiates with shadows from the middle of the room,
Lies the image of Jesus, face down,
A cross melted into his back.

II.
And a wayward man,
not even twenty,
strides in so confidently,
Flashing his knees
Through the exposure of
His ripped blue jeans.
And he climbs,
Climbs up so easily
Up onto that table
And sits on this cross
Like a cowboy on his horse,
A dirty, tired, despondent cowboy
On a horse with shoes worn thin and knots in
Its coat,
No energy to beg for
Water in order to
Quench his thirst.
And this cowboy,
In his torn
Calvin Klein
Blue jeans,
on his beast,
Chases the American dream
Across the sacred
Ritualistic table.
But the only things that moves are those
Uninhibited clouds. 

III.
And this man,
This modern cowboy,
Wraps his arms around the
Shaft
Of the cross.
He stretches his body out
Along its length
And gasping for breath
He lays his forehead down
On the smooth wood
Of the cross,
His sweat dripping in
Little raindrops
On the crucifix.
And he presses himself
more firmly
Onto the silken, carved out
Tree trunk
He drops down his feet,
Embracing the cross
with his legs,
And he squeezes
The wooden crucifix,
Harder and harder,
Closing his eyes so tightly,
Until tears pop out.
And he digs his
Jagged, chewed nails
Into the wood
And drags them
Down the length of
The rectangular prism.

IV.
While children in
Apathetic catharsis
Sit, legs crossed,
On the floor
Encircling the table.
And those children
Open their prepackaged dinners
And mechanically eat
The raw human hearts
And French fries
Found therin
With their dirty hands.
And men in business suits
Sit back in forest green
And burgundy
Easy chairs
Smoking hand rolled
Imported cigars.
They ash so carelessly
Onto the stray
Tabby cats
Curled up and
Suffering from insomnia
On the floor.
Overhead, the ceiling
Is composed of mirrors
Reflecting the scene
In psychedelic swirls of yellow.
The pattern shifts,
Gracefully and
Anemotionally
Over the image above. 

V.
And I, nailed to the
Southern wall
With plastic child-proof
Construction worker stakes,
I look out
The window
And as I stare
I find three trees
Wherein each
A giant, intuitive eye
Is contained.
These eyes,
Never blinking,
Never wavering,
Trap me
In their stare.
They stand,
Three pillars
Holding up
The omniscient air.
And I can feel
The Unconscious
Oceanic waves
Gently crashing
Against the fleshy walls
Of my chest.
Because I can see it all as it was–
Born, lived, and died–
In this gaze.
And I just want to
Rip myself away from this
Sickening microcosm
And fly out the window,
Supported by the three eyes,
And up into the air
As the clouds
Make love to the sky.