God Is Not As Gracious As Spielberg Poem by Jason Caporaletti

Fleeting figments of imagination keep me company
as I retreat to the limitless prison of phantasmal fantasy.
A prison made of three walls and a television,
the true sorcery of the screen is not how it imitates reality,
but how the mind finds it a suitable replacement.

Oh how I've longed to smash through that fourth wall
to save a friend in need, to stop a terrible tragedy,
to hold a woman with whom I've fallen in love.

No matter the evocation, the emotion is real.
Created by trickery and con perhaps, but does that make the lessons false?
the knowledge fake? the experience immaterial?

For what senses are missing the mind has a way to fill in,
I can re-live it all as memory. Whatever facade of a person displayed
the mind infers a complex being behind. So can be said for any neighbor
or acquaintance as for a 'character.'

The precious so-called real is no different,
still full of trickery and con.
Friends still cannot be saved, tragedies still unstoppable,
and love still steered toward front facing portrayals by those
not so undeserving of the title 'actress.'

The fourth wall is still there, not made of glass, not tangible,
but just as relevant
in the so-called real world which prides itself on tangibility.

But the so-called real has no guides...
No screenwriter to script it, no cameraman to reveal it,
no director to gently move you through the unfoldment of the story.

The so-called real is no less a story.
It has riveting plots and character development.
It reveals mysteries and arcs and plays with your emotions.

But God is not as gracious as Spielberg.
The process is not a laid out discovery of knowledge,
gently planned and fulfilling, but instead
a jarring series of whiplash inducing events often confusing and pointless.

Inconsistencies are more plentiful in the so-called real
than in the ramblings of even the worst fiction
and the most shallow screen presence
would be interesting in so-called real life.

Don't judge my prison. At least I know what it is.
It is pleasant and safe, and up front concerning its composition.
It is artificial frameworks and timelines filled in by my thought,
an amalgamation of emotions from presenters and audiences,
a compound image
from projectors both human and mechanical.

Your so-called reality is no different, except to claim it is.