Poem: 'Unearthing the Half in the Grave' by Alan Lisanti

Unearthing the Half in the Grave
by Alan Lisanti

Stagnancy worn like liquid concrete
Dried and adhered to glued together flesh
Inaction adorned like freshly poured mixtures
By-products of survival and self-imposed slavery
Chipping the finality away
Rat race virtuoso
Fallout repair and recalibration
Limbs like slabs of Stonehenge
Conscience crooked and angled by corrosion
Incalculable foreign languages
Wonders of the world beyond comprehension
Magic wand tip of the hat to rabbits
And handkerchiefs that burst from seams of pockets lined for infinity
It's magical, alien hybrid sophisticated wizardry
Things beyond my grasp that I fail to understand
Caterpillar feasts on cocoon sanctuary
Half step from cannibalism
Chewing my fingers and pushing my boundaries
All from a fortress of solitude
Where time slowly claims my bones
'Neath the blanket of fresh desert sands
Ladder climb rungs against laws of gravity
Transport to a dark and mysterious elsewhere
Trick vision to ignore current calamity
Bait and switch to escape the looming despair
Options swallowed too by end games and obstacles
Fake right fall left nobody even cares
Difference minor hope disguised in bleakness for futures unguaranteed
Rise and shine with tired eyes
Auto-pilot shenanigans
Feast of deception
Know my belly still bare
Distract mind with the only true form of hocus pocus medicine
Distortion and thunder squeezed from rhythm and melodies
Six strings and four strings
And bastardized frequencies
Relatable forms of soothing savagery
Keep me plugged in to the stereo
33 and a third rotates in high definition
Injections of reinvigoration
Blips above the flat line
Half-conscious and aware
I still get overwhelmed with this sensation that I evaporate
But flooded with sound waves
Crash into my cranium
Knock loose the imminent and all together inevitable
Of disappearance faded from the rush of fresh air
Serves to remind purpose has been discarded here
A torture in ways and a focus forebears
I'm only alive when I can make the thunder bleed
Only myself when my fingers walk on maple necks
Only complete when new noise eats the air
Not an option detractors, call it necessity
Music the well under limestone hidden 'neath overgrowth
Tapping the Earth and the soil to infinity
Sustaining the wanderer and the artificial stimulants
Containing the flames in glass jars stripped of oxygen
To carry on anyway content through the vicious teeth
Churning my spirit in the mouths of nothingness
To wilt for their pleasure
I'll not be the tragedy
So long as these instruments
Dissect advancements towards atrophy
Reanimated, resuscitated and rewriting the prophecy
Alter the course towards redemption
From reality akin to living nightmare