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chunk of posterity.

by Jared Fladeland

The dream is set up like a poker game,
you have to first say whether or not you're in
without ever looking at what's to come ahead,
and then you get faint traces of roman sculptures
in the forest, surrounding a cottage,
and inside are all the things you put away:
the halloween mask from five years old,
the dirty deed in the back of a honda at fifteen,
and then, when you're about to enter the back room
with the jack pot who knows what,
you're asked for another fifteen cents, to call or raise,
or perhaps fold.

so you struggle for some change, you whisper a few grunts
and you're in like, well, something other than what it is to be today,
and there the room has changed. it's a sun roof,
bathing down a sunny california road,
and the mountains sure look gorgeous but you remember distinctly
growing up in the flat plains of the belly of the united states of america,
so all this terrain is a fit unfamiliar,
yet vaguely, you remember the scent of a girl
from across the gym floor,
who you thought about maybe once or twice, passionately,
in your minor youth days, the time spent between adult hood and childhood,
when you have dirty thoughts,
but you don't think they're quite right, so you stuff yourself inside
deep inside the gut of a scared middle aged man who has nothing to live for,
so he keeps going to bed at night,
and wait, it's the river.

call or raise, the dealer man says,
and you check your hand, realize you've got nothing,
but you don't have enough chips to keep playing anyway,
and this is a race against the seven in the morning blues,
so you say all in, and go for broke,
and the wolf is standing there,
but it's a dog,
a puppy you once held in a store,
but you could never keep,
and you stare into those eyes,
and regret every mistake that ever turned out right,
but you can't take the credit for being too dumb to know the difference,
so you spend the last moments of a dream
wishing for all the things you never had,
because in dreams, even if only for eight hours,
you can bask in the horrible reality that life is nothing,
and you are slowly ticking away the moments before you realize whether you
have something,
or if the black hole really does suck in everything including light.

10/13/2009

Posted on 10/13/2009
Copyright © 2024 Jared Fladeland

Member Comments on this Poem
Posted by George Hoerner on 10/13/09 at 12:18 PM

You have some very nice lines here. Good write.

Posted by Ava Blu on 10/13/09 at 03:09 PM

Very well done. The lines go well together. Your imagery is perfect. I love it.

Posted by Leslie Ann Eisenberg on 10/16/09 at 07:08 AM

deep inside the gut of a scared middle aged man who has nothing to live for, so he keeps going to bed at night, and wait, it's the river......dang, have you turned this into a screenplay yet? absolutely brilliant, going into my favorites! pk

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