Let’s bracket that, bracket me for a moment.
Poetry and conversation
Are tedious ways of managing emotions.
I’m not here to unpack my feelings.
Can we please just talk about the film?
The Human Torch, in a deeply unsubtle move,
Tries to sacrifice himself for family
Not once, twice. Both times, he is denied the splendor
Of a heroic conclusion. Reality’s zombie consensus
Keeps twisting his arms, literally and symbolically
Snuffing the light. It dissolves into the background radiation
Of memory, and this dilution of human spirit
Expresses shorter half-life as experience lengthens,
As his will dwindles, as the scorpions are trapped in amber.
Nevertheless, this is the madness brought about by love,
A sensation triangulated somewhere between joy
And being suckerpunched repeatedly.
Cliche though it may be, passion teaches us more
Than science about the mechanics of life,
About its fragile hollows and brawny callouses,
About our tender exchange of sparks lasting no time at all.
Unseen to the casual viewer, in subtextual grooves
Between digital violence and product placement,
The Human Torch approaches
A renunciation of faith, stress testing
His long-held belief that the world is good.
Cosmic vampires are descending upon his beloved world:
Upon nature, museums, libraries, upon networks of support,
Friends, loved ones. The Human Torch tries laughing
Off this endless appetite that consumes with its dark jaws
Out beyond terror’s horizon. He feels small
In the shadow of genius. The Human Torch is overworked.
He does not want to talk about the office,
To see the same sights, to put out the same fires.
Even after a hot bath, clean shave and skintoner,
Even with a double-windsor knot over the oxford awww
Costing a bomb, costing the earth, the Human Torch
Feels swarthy and misshapen. He can sense in his bones
Some recessive imposter traits activating
Like an explosive device set to a timer
Concealed within his genetic code, the fractured
Hereditary serpents that coil his blood
And spawn new helixes of disorder and inertia.
On dark nights, high above the city combusting
The Human Torch fears he is a confidence man
Without the confidence, an actor miscast, a parlor trick.
Collateral damage in training. He is headquartered in a glass box
Somewhere in the sky, where even his journals have become public.
He sits in a room surrounded by artworks, obsessing over records,
Cooling heels til signals come clear. Missives from gods yonder.
A hand to take the wheel. There are contours in the voice
Of another, unsung. Salvation has always dwelled elsewhere.
Blessed though he is, he feels outside the elaborate inside joke
that covers all of creation. The Void stares back.
The Human Torch fails to articulate
Something I also fail to articulate:
How love is liminal, how we must set aside old grudges
When reality’s true demons are at the gate,
How family puts a revolver to reason’s head,
How it is not too late, how we must keep
Our flames burning, brighter even in our darkness.
But then again,
we are not talking about me.