Response to the Dead Poets Society

If you squash them,

if you bend them,

if you project your face onto theirs,

their minds will break:

reflections shattered, a mass of cracks and holes

where a person should be.

Their bodies will rot, bulge, blacken, weep.

Kindling that longs to ignite

if only to prove that it has some self-worth left.

And at the end of it,

still it will not be your name you see,

but theirs, as it only ever could.

You failed them,

yet stand where they still should.

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Twisted pence

It’s the twist that makes you jump,

makes you fidget, makes you squeak.

 

What’s this, what’s this, what’s this?

Turn the page, turn up the sound,

 

venture to the next checkpoint

and check in with yourself.

 

Is your pulse racing, your head perspiring

bumps on your arms like a goose?

 

Tick that box while your stomach’s in knots

and tip your hat to the creator.

The Thoughts of Those

The moon glanced up at the sun. It

Had never worked

With such a well-known star before

And was more nervous than the first

Time it glowed for the Earth.

Of course, it had always seen

The sun, but now they were cast

Together for the Eclipse

(A momentous production);

How small and pale it felt.

The sun didn’t notice

The moon’s nervousness.

The sun was busy looking at

The giant audience of peers

Gathered around to witness

Its Moment.

Until the die read five or eight

I feel the monsoon sweating down my back,

see the darting tongues of vibrant purple blossoms

and the wrapping vines of sun-kissed waxy blooms.

 

I race the crocodiles down the stream,

run with the wild beasts who stampede over

burial grounds where their ancestors patiently wait.

 

I see the figurines move along their twisted paths

eyeing the telling jewel as their prize,

but the hunter guards it with savage delight.

 

A roll of the die is all it will take to freeze

the years of waiting to the far reaches of mind,

but will it read a five or an eight?