Helix

The reading in this class has been fantastically eye-opening and has rekindled by love for reading. But if there was anything we read that had more impact on  than any other, it was T.S Elliot's Four Quartets. His style is so potent and surreal, it's everything I could ever want to be as an artist. So naturally I've tried to steal his voice.

That's a joke, although only sort of. Learning to mimic other artists is probably the most important tool I've found in developing my own unique and authentic voice. This poem was an attempt to filter Elliot through myself, and I hope you like it!

Helix (The Ladder)

Look at us.

The same source

code woven through

our bones, we are

instinct, concrete, and

fallen stratus.

Ancient and

enigmatic energy

looms and reigns

from outside our brains,

out past where

purple grass grows,

out where the

rainbows refract, trapped

in prismatic prisons,

and where angels melt

in shivering snow.

It is there

the Skullclouds

whisper,

“Who are you?

And where do you

think you’re going?”

The answer needs

a question.

The island needs

an ocean.

Heaven is here,

our teeth bare the gate.

Seconds are second

because we’re

always too

late.

But oh, how I love

the games we play.

Lift the veil

and see the end:

apocalypse

is how it all began.

Isn’t it

wonderful, this

Fall of Man?

Joseph Schadt