Poems
Haiku - Links - About
the Author
A Thing and a Thing - Home
Page - Poems Page 1, Page
2
Planned Obsolescence
For Kathy -- 2/96
The world as we know it keeps on ending,
leaving us to scratch our heads and wonder
where all the instructions flew off to.
She'll know more than you do, you know;
in a dozen years, maybe fewer, she'll
be rolling her eyes up to heaven
at how ignorant her parents are.
Hers is the sacred mystery
of how to stop the clock from flashing
on the holotainment center.
That's what it is to be a parent
in the new millennium --
obsolete and proud of it.
.
The Unhaunted
Some dark nights I stare at shadows,
and try to shape them into her:
standing at the foot of my bed
with a smile of reassurance,
or with exasperated air
telling me we both need our sleep.
.
Even if I did believe in
ghosts, I'd be a fool to think that
she would haunt me, anyway.
Her lover, perhaps; her parents;
her brother. A mere torch-bearer
is much too far down the list to
qualify for visitation.
.
So the shadows stay just shadows.
She never loved me, or there are
no ghosts, or I'm simply too blind
to see her frantic gesturing,
too deaf to hear her calling me,
too faithless to believe in her.
The shadows fall, and then I sleep.
.
God Just Laughed
O God, who gave the day only 24 hours,
and made us need a third of it for sleep;
who inspired someone to invent the leaf blower;
.
who made my pillow soft and cool,
my bedcovers snug and warm,
and my bathroom floor icy cold --
.
O God, who art responsible for Mondays,
I really hate you sometimes, you know that?
.
BACK TO THE TOP