Anamnesis

The dredge of recollection
haunts with every facet of melancholy,
sleuths of heroic memory slumber past

cavalierly the crepuscular of youth, there
time stands still and blunts the recoil of
mementos, this storage is vast in riches, 
beyond notable thickets of flaneur, tiny 
trinkets of twiddling tribulations seize 
every sensation, this godhead of sorting 
and lament hurls this weaponry with complete 
control, provincial yet effective in collaboration,
collared by my own imprisonment, helpless
and yet cold-hearted these memories for whom
prey upon my self-reliant, self-willed, and 
self-disciplined conscience, sense-datum 
beseech every sentient esthetic reverie. Why
must they attack and kill at night when I’m 
most vulnerable? This drawbridge of memorial
recoups every drop of misery without regard for
reconciliation, there recounting the salvage of 
lost loved ones who are silently weeping. Are
they trying to reach me, or am I just alone in this 
madcap of recovery? 

- John Hardesty

©️ 2/28/2020

Reclusive Tendencies

The boketto begins, no one is to blame,
your meraki has fallen from your work,
you’ve traveled in silence to keep from
screaming, this fanaa eats away like cancer,
you’ve never reached out for a hand or any smile,  yet
your futifaction glares back in gruesome 
hollowness, life’s become something more than
you’ve bargained, you’ve squandered away all
your hopes, your last dream is vacated by grief,
once an oriflamme of misery now’s your only
embrace of comfort, this adoxography placates 
your need to be heard or to be accepted but 
this Orphic is all you desire, you’re seldom
enthusiastic of some fancy mention of trivial 
wares, for your eudaimonia cannot be bought or 
secured by some shallow penchant, this genie 
won’t return her gift; one must first recognize 
one’s despair to begin to love and what keeps you
willfully alive, death owes no promise to you, 
but living in this imperishable hope of retrieving 
lost legitimacy is all that requires of this loathing 
penance, you’ve lengthened your mind to vast 
catharsis, where very few ever run amongst 
and up against the small gods who wrought 
you to this point, welcome. 

- John Hardesty 

©️1/23/2020

Self-Defeat

I implode within my conscience, the
unenviable purge, to consort with this 
ghost who never obeys my pleas, wants,
and desires, yet, this grandiloquent lie
suppresses and grapples the faithful and
the unmoving soul stays bound, this fading 
trust isn’t weakness, but the lack of empirical 
proof allays all doubt, no stone tablet of 
soft lyrical psalms confirms anything, 
there’s been great writers in every century,
and an alcove of fiction are what myths are 
made of, no inner voice speaks to me from 
some abundant cloud cover, no guilt-laden
apologies, no romancing some diverting fable
to appease the musings of others, what I do 
find gratifying in this life is the multitude of
creatures that survive without myths, or the 
gray on a goose that matches their fated gloom; the
saddest and most immaculate lie of all is to
keep the immersion of this ignominious fabliau 
alive with hope, but without hope man would 
believe he’s an inferior god.