Prologue (White):
Book Club
The City
Prologue (Black):
Paladin
Important
Book Club
We are sacrosanct,
meeting in forgotten haunts
to commune with serifed fonts.
Minds all racing, this grand pre-
apocalyptic land
now relies on us deciphering
our arcane contraband.
We are on a quest
to find some meaning in this mess
or create some if necessed.
Earnest questions analyze
each ligature askance.
It’s between the lines where we will find our chance to
turn the tide of this semanticide.
For the truth isn’t dead, it just had to hide
inside cagey quires with guiding lights slyly implied.
We will find a reading to set the world anew.
We are a book club; what else can we do?
We are only hopes,
quaint folkloric hero tropes
risking lives on horoscopes.
Nacarat and mazarine
sky motion-picturesque,
we will delve through every rumored tomblike desk, ’til
on the last page we find the palimpsest
of an ancient alchemical almagest
where the mages presages we would read our way out of this mess.
We are a book club; what else can we do?
We are a book club. Who the hell are you?
The City
From home in the middle of nowhere, we can see the city far off in the distance.
We’re not surprised by the size so much as by its very existence.
The lights burn together, a singular crowd
like a low-hanging sunset-backlit amber cloud;
a lost soul trapped inside a golden shroud
with only a token resistance.
Its promise fills the air…
if we dare, we’ll find the road leads there.
As we move closer to the city, time speeds up slowly to a blur.
A million lights turn day and night to more than they once were
There’s so much to soak in, we could never again
want to see something that’s already been.
Our moments get tired of waiting their turn to occur.
I should feel chastened and austere…
seared with a sublime sort-of-fear
because anyone who’s anyone is here
and
so
are
we.
Then we rise from the streets to a sparkling suite in an unstained glass hotel,
a lost ghost of a note kept afloat by the waves from a slow cymbal swell,
and countless skyscrapers stretch in the same direction,
outracing the light from each others’ reflections,
chasing the stars and following heaven
with unending stories to tell.
I can’t bring myself to sleep tonight.
This tower of bones shines too bright.
Must be a spectrum higher than light,
beyond ordinary sight,
only seen at this height.
We should feel effacement and dismay,
like fireflies at a fireworks display.
We should feel rhapsodical today,
like lost souls that finally found their way,
but who could live amidst all this romance
when we can’t take so much as one glance
without falling into an ocean of light
or heedless deerlike trance?
To survive, we’d have to be jaded and witty,
but we can’t see wonder as deserving of pity.
We’ll always be new to this city
and we’ll never stand a chance.
‘Cause anyone who’s anyone is here
and if we’re not sure we’re someone, we might disappear.
Yes, anyone who’s anyone is here,
and we should feel frightened,
and we should feel chastened,
but we just feel surprised
that anyone can live here at all.
Yeah, we look like some kids
forever new to the city.
Paladin
The heroes rally here,
eyes alight with zeal.
Weapons of a cause,
with spines of steel.
And as a moon among these suns, I’m unsuspected.
But it’ll be revealed, it’ll be revealed,
I’m just a plastic shield.
A plastic shield shines like steel
and blinds foes with light,
but a challenge will reveal
a plastic knight.
And though I smile as I accept each holy task,
they will find me out. I will show my doubt,
and they will find me out.
Yeah…
They’re staring.
So why can’t they see?
I can’t keep this up,
this thing they need from me.
Their hopes and their fears, I’ll bear them out.
I don’t need their trust, but I’ll take their doubt.
I’ll take it all upon myself until I break.
To crack beneath the weight, my brittle plastic fate.
To crack beneath the weight…
Wait, wait, please wait!
They’re staring.
But what do they see?
I can’t keep this up!
And one day they’ll notice
the daggers of doubting,
the demons of don’t-belong-here.
Dragons are shouting,
“Your first fight will be your last!”
They know that I’m no paladin.
I’ll never be.
Revealed…
it’ll be revealed
revealed
revealed
revealed
I’m just a plastic shield.
Important
Well most girls, they dream of unicorns
just as guys, they dream of holoporn,
and both know not to get too forlorn
that those don’t exist.
But you never were one to compromise
for lesser dreams that crowds devise;
the passing desires of passersby
wishing substance out of mist.
I am on firmament, you are on fire.
You are a human and I am a liar.
In your diamond eyes I am nothing important,
to be tossed by the riverside.
I am a fighter and you are a cause.
I am a writer and you’re a mirage.
But someday I swear I’ll do something important,
or have less unconvincing lies.
Well you’ve thought it through, and you know your place:
your role in saving the human race,
the parts of life you will embrace
to live importantly.
You’ve got the best of convictions,
no need for museborne afflictions,
no place for the happy fictions
of charlatans like me.
I am on firmament, you are on fire.
You are a human and I am a liar.
In your diamond eyes I am nothing important,
to be tossed by the riverside.
I am a fighter and you are a cause.
I am a writer and you’re a mirage.
But someday I swear I’ll do something important,
or have less unconvincing lies.
Someday I’ll die for my misguided morés,
foolish pretensions and ill-conceived forays,
my life remembered as that most Pyrrhic
of moral victories.
Someday you’ll see I’m a half-decent guy
(chivalrous self-deprecation aside).
I want nothing more than to give you something
to shine in your memories.
I AM INDOMITABLE.
I AM A TIGER.
I AM NOT AN ANIMAL.
I AM NOT A LIAR.
I am nothing short
of a paragon of human folly.