Reductio Ad Absurdum
SOMETIMES I feel like,
I f e e l
LIKE
I,
I I
I I
I
I I I
I I I
I
I M LUSINNG
MAI; mnd.
I'll be sitting in something like the half-lotus
Position, and I'll be staring at my computer screen,
Which is tilted downward just slightly, so I can
See… if I play a game—which I won't (I have a TV for that) ,
But whatever—and I'll just be half-way into some
Deep focus meditation, wondering about Mu
Or something else, or something yogic,
Or something… OM NAMA SHIYAVA…
I'm just mindless right now,
Reeling in that emptiness,
Wishing I could pull myself
Out of Satan's Cradle,
Not thirsty for the milk
That flows from the mother
Of my inaction,
My absolute lethargy.
It doesn't have to be this way—
I tell myself.
I tell myself as I sit there,
White screen greeting me,
Telling me what a good day it is
To not think at all
And maybe write a poem
When I get fed up from reading
My Facebook newsfeed—
Doesn't happen as often as you'd think,
Though I'm terminally disgruntled
About the perpetual bondage
I have toward the social networking
Behemoth;
Leviathan that gnarls through the seas
Of boredom, sinking the steady ship
Consciousness in its green, amaranthine
Jaws, which glow in the twilit,
Star-crossed window sill
That beams in the plasma
Box and back to where it came.
Help me out.
Help me.
I AM HERE!
And I can't stop doing nothing
To do something
Because something might happen
While I'm out doing something
And I know it won't happen
But it might happen
But I don't know how to make things happen
Can someone tell me how to make things happen
So I can stop doing nothing
And do something
And people will be like
You did something
So I'm glad I was watching
While I was doing nothing
Just waiting
Wishing
H O P I NG
Y
O
U
WOuld—
Do
Som ething.
I'm glad you did something.
I wanted to do it,
But I was too busy waiting for you to do it.
Oh, God, if there is a GOD,
Can't you release me from these chains—
I mean, according to Milton,
You released Satan,
And he said,
'Here, at last, we shall be free.'
Of course, he was in Hell,
But he was his master
And if this is heaven,
Then salvation sucks
And I don't want any part of it.
Release me,
Release me,
I don't want to be the anthroparion
Of the technological age,
Blood pouring out of my eyeballs,
My teeth clenched into a single pane
To reflect the visions that gloss
Across the panel I stare at—
I don't want to be the ouroborus,
The mobius snake that loops for a while
Before eating himself.
I wonder if I am the result
Of the Chinese Room Experiment—
AM I RESPONDING TO MY CONSCIOUSNESS
OR AM I SIMULATING MY RESPONSE
BY IMAGINING A THEORETICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
WHICH MAY OR MAY NOT EXIST—
whatever.
I just want to sit up,
And erase the homunculus
That hangs over my head
As if it were barbed wire
On life's fence,
Gateless, though it may be.
I could be doing something I tell myself
I tell myself
I tell myself
Do I lie to compensate for what I want?
What do I want?
I don't know, but can I have it.
QED
poem by Tim Stensloff
Added by Poetry Lover
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