Sudden Shock Of Cognizance
© Surazeus
2025 11 19

Nineteen years before the empire will fall
Jake wrenches upward from brain-tangled sleep
to slouch dazed on edge of the broken bed,
hair more ruffled than wind-blown raven wings,
and stares bleak-eyed out smudged window of angst
at cars racing swiftly on highway bridge.

Tugging on torn jeans and tattered tee-shirt,
and trudging out the door in untied shoes,
Jake wanders with the frantic crowd of sheep
with bored wolf eyes in late autumn sun glare
to flop on iron bench by the book store
and watch the world grow wealthy without him.

Emerging from dazed numbness of despair,
that paralyzes his cumbersome heart
with tedious nonchalance of earnest dread,
Jake stares with sudden shock of cognizance
from turbid apprehension of grim gloom
at lurid faces reflecting his horror.

Ten thousand years after he tames the horse
Jake sneers at people in arrogant suits
who strut with pride at employment of faith
with contempt that they are robots of greed
willing to bow with obsequious fawning
through servility to power of wealth.

Lurching to his feet with sudden insight
when holy spirit of the great blue sky
flashes bright in pulsing sponge of his brain,
Jake raps expansive sermon in taut verse
of rhyme-asserting prophecy for truth
presenting moral virtues of great men.

Though some slow down and listen to his spell
preaching complex analysis of life
through logical deductions of the heart
that offer solutions to global problems,
Jake never notices that people drop
money in his hat as they hurry past.

Exhausted from hours of preaching hard truth
through deep perceptive verses about life,
Jake spreads Icarian wings of solitude
and floats away into the sparkling sky
in glorious ascension up to Heaven
where Jesus welcomes him to paradise.

Two thousand years after Jesus leaves Earth
Jake eats hamburger in the city park
then wanders back home where he pays the rent
with fractured fragments of his bleeding bones,
and falls asleep in tangled sheets of faith
to dream he is the raven Odin tends.

surazeus.blogspot.com/2025/11/…

Orpheus secretly films the mad prophet who preaches sermons in rap-constructed verse about complex social issues, then produces documentary film that earns him many prestigious awards.

#Poetry #Poem #Pastoral #Necropastoral #MetaModernism #Transrealism #NewSublimity #NewRomanticism #AmericanDream #Cinemism #Existentialism #Surrealism #NegativeCapability #NewGnosticism #MetaRealism #NewTranscendentalism #Astarism