My Foolproof Solution for Fixing Everything That's Wrong with the World
This subject line is a lie.
PSYCH! I’m going to make you read poems instead.
I’ve been into poetry on and off since college, but my interest really took off last year for whatever reason. Reading more has led to writing more has led to reading more. I haven’t really shown anything I’ve written to anyone, because who wants to ready poetry by someone who’s not already well-known for writing poetry? But if you’ve read this far, maybe that’s not a fair description of you. In any event, don’t worry, there are only three, and they’re short.
PALAVER
Across the globe a conclave of bats
Dangles around an upturned conference table
To plot their next disease. The consensus
On their last one was not enough vomit. These
People need to KNOW they’re sick. Let’s bring
Back something that will make their bits
Drop off, turn them back into soup. Or or or—
Flapping hard enough to ruffle everyone’s bristling
Fur—a malady that removes them from their
Minds and places them in each other’s; when
It spreads it makes them switch. One minute
They’re on the top and BOOM—the next they’re
Ugly or poor or a woman. But wouldn’t they
Just retreat in ranks to stay with their own?
Impossible—they can’t leave each other alone.
They’ll infect themselves out of spite. Besides,
There’s an up for every down; a gain for every
Loss. But what will they do? the eldest
Asked, a weary chirp from deep within folded
Wings, after centuries? When they’ve all?
Seen out of? Every eye? And finally become?
One single mind? What havoc? Will they foster?
Then? The flapper shrieks, Empathy! Balance! At long
Last, enough! And the old one nods, under-
Standing the depth of the error, spreads wings,
Disengages calcar, and glides for the final time
Into an unforgiving dawn
HAT, WHIP, MACHETE
When adventuring in an ancient temple
You should always be prepared to see a skull
Rolling across the stone path from a dark
Recess beyond your line of sight. Is it
A remnant of an explorer past, booby-
Trapped into cautionary fragments? Or
A “native” whose blood consecration ensures
The successful workings of a curse? Perhaps
It once inhabited the form of
The temple architect himself, whose gifts
All invested in these halls, lacked power
To sway a tyrant jealous of the future? No,
The rolling bone staring at you from your feet
Is your own; it was always your own.
You have nothing else to offer or gain.
It’s insane that you would even think to ask.
TUMULUS
Imagine you coming up from that hole. What will you be?
A leafy mound with a heart of compost, growing temporary limbs to make a point before receding back into moss and worms
A sharpened femur, two ribs, a fragment of a skull, a masterpiece of negative space with just enough presence to kill
A plasmic aura, opalescent with grief, pulsing with all you’ve forgotten, aching to unburden it
A silly little mammal, a rodent less traveled, spiky pompom with no neck, emitting a ratchety song you know annoys us
A massive bacterium you can heft like a watermelon, all the squishy parts sloshing against the rind, inconsolable
A perfectly preserved aristocratic child, one who endured so much yet betrays not a single mark, eyes sewn shut by the sand of decades
You hold all of these options in your escrow, but you wisely offer none
As we walk back down the hill, we know you’re watching us
If we turned around, like Orpheus in reverse, you would disappoint us all by being there
Unless we pray for sudden night to drop like a busted scrim
We won’t open our eyes until the third drink, the tavern barely tolerating our premise
Pooling our pity into every drop, oblivious to the games refracted in the rectangles around us
Their players cavorting in grand capsules studding distant cities
So focused on their mid-leap stoppage of time
That they’ve forgotten the eyes that can’t see
How far beneath the floor this world goes
I’m taking next week off because I’ll be on vacation. I’m counting on you to take care of the place while I’m gone.
I hate to say it... but so good!