Living In The Big Machine: Sounds Passing Through Sudden Rightnesses Poem by Dennis Ryan

Thursday morning, May 31,2012; Friday morning, February 17, 2023

‘Now this angry little girl drowning in [her petty] world'
—Goo Goo Dolls, ‘Big Machine'

‘I want to get free, talk to me... all your lies aren't enough
to keep me here'
—Goo Goo Dolls, ‘Here Is Gone'

Living in the big machine, I don't know what else to say.
I don't want to hurt you, but anything less than honesty now
seems beside the point—seeing is believing. But honesty,
the truth has never gotten us anywhere, in part because
of the faces you wear—which one is it of the moment?
I have told you things about living in the big machine
I have told no one else, but you tell me little to nothing
in return. You're about keeping silent, now, always.
Voices are their content, tones, qualities, and qualities
depend upon time accrewed, experience, occasions—
of this much I am sure. Telling and listening, telling and
listening, telling and listening, and trying to understand.
I need to hear sounds passing through sudden rightnesses,
but such sounds aren't yours and never have been.
I just got used to your lying sounds sounding like truths.