Yet Still We Die

Yet Still We Die
© Surazeus
2023 08 14

Fame is just as disconcertingly weird 
as I feared it would be. The novelist 
stares at crowds of strangers outside bookstores 
who shout with voices of wolves for his soul. 
Still shattered from the day his house burned down, 
he tries to hide in shadow of the door. 

Though he takes on himself sincerity, 
he fails at climbing promise of great fame, 
because he tries to make kingdom of truth 
from the tragic horrors of life he saw. 
Each house he builds on river of desire 
contains but nameless ghosts he leaves behind. 

Though vision of this world his mind designs, 
and action duty requires he perform, 
never synchronize with beat of his heart, 
yet he drafts list of rules for membership 
in the doom club, since times in which we live 
are never wrong or right. Yet still we die. 

His wandering figure in the timeless scene 
is never reconciled with purchased hope 
that rots in swamps of uncomfortable truth. 
Devoted chronicler of ironies, 
too great for journalists to analyze, 
the novelist records fate fooled by fame. 

He is no man against the empty sky 
though he tries to wear the lost mask of god 
to the party where the powerful grin 
with bloody teeth. Yet still he wants to map 
sunlit labyrinth of pain we must walk 
to find the affable despair we need. 

Because he is the lonely resident 
for life in the wrong world his mind designs, 
he chooses to make music that enchants 
sorrow-clouded minds of lost refugees 
with glorious revelation of his heart 
that glows still in torch of freedom he bears. 

If we wish to evade apocalypse 
of global warming, that sends hurricanes 
smashing national pride with bitter faith, 
then we should read his holy prophecies 
which describe true ontology of being 
that we are conscious swirls of chemicals. 

The truth about our world is what I say, 
declares the novelist with one good eye 
who drinks sweet ginger tea with chocolate, 
then watches meteors streak across the sky 
to announce second coming of the fool 
who wants to save the Earth from humankind.