T.V. (i.p.)

Gentle and inviting is the television invasion and the hot reckless laugh,
where the lonely know God not.

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I’ve seen bodies prostrate in half-realized existences,
with reflected images treading obtrusively across static-kissed faces of blues and greys and whites. And shadows cast like dancing silhouettes in firelight,
struggling to be rid of their weight, the part of them that breathes.
To break free across the surfaces of couches and the smoothness of walls.
To leave.
But they continue to change direction as the static rises and falls,
forever being pulled back and tied to the thing which has borne them.
The body that lies.
The face that opens its eyes and peers into the static,
searching for something familiar, something it can recognize.
And all the while pours itself out through its peering and its pores until the floors run thick with thoughts of commercialized satire and ready-made lifestyles, where people and styles exist without life.
Roles without conscience and unconscionable goals,
that ford the rift between fantasy and the wandering amorphous souls of the children who lie in the living rooms watching.
And with hollow-eyed stares and weak emptied minds,
like canvasses blank and sponges readied and dried,
they sit and they baste in the shit we provide.
We nurture with waste and their minds waste away,
incubating caramelized cartoon drivel and carnal sin from 9 to 5 dribbling across their eyes and down their spine.
Until it is all that they know.
And worse, all that they want.