poem

Poem: On the Insignificance of Coffee

R. Horton2 Comments

She tweeted that it was the 
worst day of her life.

They didn’t have her favourite
hazelnut soy milk for her latte,
and everything was ruined.

She singlehandedly spawned
the phrase “first world problems,”
And people started saying,
“Check your privilege” 
all the damned time.

She was aware of her privilege,
of course, and thought it would
be funny to exaggerate the tragedy
of a morning coffee gone slightly wrong.

It was meant to be ironic, 
but some people don’t see
the humour in angry rants about
insignificant events in daily life.

They are focused only on important matters.
For example, they worry about what God
people send their prayers, what kind
of sex people are enjoying, and whether 
people have acceptable clothing to
match their very real genitals.

We mustn’t be distracted by the 
insignificance of coffee.

Poem: You Thought You Fled

R. Horton

“Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?” ~Thomas Wolfe

To get out of the land
is more painfully done than said.

A stranger in all the familiar places
will seek respite in foreign arms.

Lot’s wife was the lucky one,
frozen in time before realisation
set in. The destruction you flee
is your own heart imploding. 

The peace you seek recedes
eternally into the distance.

Just this one time you thought
you might be understood,
might share a vision with
a deluded angel or sympathetic
demon, but in the end you 
settle again into a seat for one.

Nursery Rhyme for the Apocalypse

R. Horton

Bill Barr, Bill Barr, you’ve gone too far.
You find the peasants revolting.
The CIA in your day
was grounds for fascist training.

No care at all, for the Rule of Law.
Democracy is fleeting.
Just shock and awe from secret police
as the jackboots go out beating.

(chorus)
Bill Barr, Bill Barr keep it up
pushing autocracy.
We‘ll stand, we’ll fight, we’ll even die
to save our democracy.   

You’ve made it clear that some lives
Really should not matter.
We’re here to say we have rights,
And we’re done with passive chatter.

We came in peace but stood our ground
And now your army can’t persist.
We’ll stand up tall, win or lose,
And we will always resist.

(chorus)
Bill Barr, Bill Barr keep it up
pushing autocracy.
We‘ll stand, we’ll fight, we’ll even die
to save our democracy.   

No final win and no final loss
Will cause the struggle to cease.
You think you’ve won, but you’ll soon find out
without justice, you’ll never have peace. 

(chorus)
Bill Barr, Bill Barr keep it up
pushing autocracy.
We‘ll stand, we’ll fight, we’ll even die
to save our democracy.   

Poem: Cowboy Sonnet

R. Horton

He called himself a cowboy poet,
and he performed wearing an old straw hat.
It had been awhile since he rode a horse,
but he never really mentioned that.
He knew the smell of wet hay, of course,
but it’d been years since he scraped dung off his boots.
It’s true he missed being out in the fresh air,
but he didn’t miss seeing all the redneck brutes.
He still remembered seeing the cow’s fear
when some were taken off to auction,
and his memory still brought a silent tear
at the thought of a mother cow’s grief-induced exhaustion.

When pressed, he could still carry on a cowboy’s prattle,
but it was undeniably true he was all hat and no cattle. 

Poem: Eternal Recurrence and Damnable Regrets

R. Horton

It was a misunderstanding, really,
or a slip of the tongue,
or maybe he really was
just a major asshole.

Whatever, he felt the rising burn
in his cheek and the glow of his ears
whenever he thought of it,
and it played on an interminable
loop in vivid detail in both
waking memories and lucid dreams.

There’s nothing to be done now, 
he thought, no exit from past decisions.
Redemption is impossible and
Salvation a mere myth of mortals.
He would always be what he always was.

As he stared at the fan on the ceiling,
he only wished he had chosen his
words more carefully. 

Poem: Something about Celestial Irony

R. Horton

She was explaining about how each moment had an infinite number of possibilities and how each possibility existed in an alternate universe where each subsequent moment created an infinite number of following possibilities and how each of these possibilities existed in even more parallel universes where every possible story line for every possible moment was played out with both cosmic justice and celestial irony. 

But he was distracted by the movement of her lips. He was watching the flutter of her eyelashes and the dilation of her pupils. He was enthralled, almost thrilled, but appeared bored. She said, “You’re not even listening,” and started to gather her things. 

He was disappointed, yes, but it wasn’t the first time a casual social interaction had gone awry. All the same, he wondered what might have happened if he’d only listened a bit more carefully or at least explained that he’d been distracted by her lips. 

Poem: The Other Side of Nigel

R. Horton

Dominic’s parents took him to
church and warned him to sit still.
Of course he had a fidgeting fit
as all boys his age will.
He sat for eternity in a state
of seemingly suspended frustration.
He tried against his wont to focus
on redemption and abomination,
but he couldn’t get his mind off
Susie’s note, better reading than the Bible.
But it slipped from his pocket when he took
his seat and fell on the other side of Nigel.

Poem: The Infinite Inefficacy of Adaptations

R. Horton

I always thought Christians would
have to accept Leibniz’s dictum that
this is the best of all possible worlds.

Otherwise, believers would be saying
their omnipotent God could
have created a better world,

if he had wanted, but here we are,
trapped in this heap of chaos
and pain, but it is no easier

for atheists. After millions of years
of adaptation, we have nothing
better to show for ourselves

than greed, war, and vanity.
We’ve had all this time to improve,
and I still can’t find the glasses

that are resting on my head.

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Poem: Refusing to Look Away from Death in Dying Light

R. Horton

This guy once refused to mourn
a little girl who died in a fire,
and we were shocked,
but here we are,
and mourning is forbidden.

We already had distance from death,
sending the dying to hospitals to
negotiate their final arrangements
with eternity in solitude.

And now we wrangle with loss,
alone, muttering final farewells
into wells of wine and beer.

We’ve got this far apart,
and, somehow, drifting
in starless night has made
us realise, against all odds, this
is community. God is in
the limen between me and other.

At one moment, this penumbral
light marks an opening, an escape,
and the next it marks the infinite fading.

I will forever whisper, “I love you,”
as a torturing tic of Tourette’s
until darkness muzzles the
motoring mouthpiece of my mind
and peace kills what remains of desire.

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