Autumn, That Bastard

Authenticity

By Christos Floratos

I've discovered, Dear Reader,

That my words will pass you by, like air.

Critical responder that judge these words

For five cents – no less – soon to be expired the way of the pennies.

No tabloids here or there.

No mysterious untraceable existence in Greece,

No oven linked to finite eternity,

No hidden quill.

And no same road, no lover's like a compass and no nameless sonnet.

For I have a name, Authenticity.

I present no flowers for they are for the meek.

For they are redundant, and I am no recessions subject.

I will not mitigate my words.

What meaning do you make of me?

What does my structure permeate?

My inflections are ghosts of Titans past.

I am the son of a metanarrative, the daughter of Abraham.

Fear constitutes my existence.

Remaining – somehow – identifiable.

Burglarised from the Library,

Buried in some 13 Digits,

Burnt as did Alexandria.

Keep my eyes unblurred from the rage of the rapids,

Fighting off the bottom feeders

So I can be read.

Simple.

I do not regret my Autumn affair,

The cruelty of my voice; my eagerness to judge,

For soon I will be burnt; and pretty alike.

Dear reader, are you following me?

Tragic are the shackles of creative commons.

Of laws and licenses, patents on words as simple as delight.

Like an order abiding angel.

If you're not happy with this realism

May I suggest a few pills of dull serotonin...

Cheek to cheek, kiss the air, decide the pleasure upon greeting.

In 100 years, you may use me... another whore of literature.

Smile as you do. Do the words reciprocate?

With something longing in you,

Buried with the daises under the foliage of auburn and umber.

And under the scrunched leaves lies the true answer, the critique.

Dear Reader, I am only as good as I am.

Homer and his Epics,

Plath and her tragedy,

Austen and her secrecy.

Donne and his Death.

I claim none of that.

I am the age of the Global.

Where Summer lasts all year-round,

And Winter is surely abound.

The only structure you should know,

That nothing new is ever the same, or ever fresh.

Culprit of thievery I am. This has been done before.

Maybe, reader, I will be dug up in 100 years,

– A lonely Golden Voyage –

Crunched up and new.