Poetry Post #2
Should I warn you that my poetry is often very dark? I've always written poems that I sometimes wish would crawl away so I don't have to bear the thoughts they carry. But these are perilous times, and perilous words seem to fit.
Lately, I have been wondering what the human animal adds to the equation of life on our planet. I refuse to break us apart from other animals with the idea that we have 'intelligence'. OK; we have a larger brain, we speak, we write, but we also consistently fall and hit our egos on expose truths. Now imagine a deer, unable to question, only observing...
deer
walking on their knife-feet
fur glinting with dew in the
raw, blood-orange sunlight at dawn.
how tired they look
winter is withdrawing but
spring isn’t ready.
starving, me? I realized
in my Chrysler Imperial
gray, ghost-like, me a hungry atom
at the center of a collider
compassion my anti-particle
smashing me, grinding me,
throwing sparks to the ends of the universe.
who sits in their chariot above me?
who judges my worn clothing,
my spit-polished shoes,
my threadbare tie?
I am an imitation of life,
suckling at a computer’s terminal
mourning without feeling it
crying without moisture and
a soiled napkin in my pocket
from yesterday’s lunch counter.
what comfort to learn:
I am nothing,
I have no time at all compared to
stars and gods and wayward deer.
a deer uses it snout as a shovel
pushes aside the snow
and munches on yellow grass
that, no doubt, tastes like heaven.