Too Far

After he had stormed off in his Volvo and got home to a torrent of texts, he responded with a fusillade of his own.  It was like a naval battle at close quarters, with no quarter given. Someone was going down.

He got in the last word. That was unusual, Perhaps he had gone too far. He need not have said some of the things he said. One particular insult was, in retrospect, very cutting.

He texted a partial rebuttal before he hit the sack. No response. He texted again. And again. Perhaps he had gone too far. Had she…? O God no. It didn’t bear thinking about.

He buried his head under the pillow and tried to sleep. Eventually he crashed. But the nightmares ….

He awoke at six in the morning. His mobile lit up. His arm flew across to grab it. It was from her. A volley of vitriol.

He had never felt so happy.

The Mark of the Beast

Today I have the mark of the beast upon me.

It came up overnight,

It cannot be hidden except by a mask

But when I take it off, to eat, to explain a matter,

to simply breather easier, friends,

people recoil at the angry red rash

that runs from the tip of my nose to upper lip,

like birds before a predator.

I cannot shave so look doubly abhorrent.

I am only grateful for covid where a face mask

can be worn without question.

It is my close companion, my Linus blanket.

Looking for Dodos

 

I was walking through the new state-of-the-art library

Looking for a book of poems, any book of poems.

It was like looking for dodos in the zoo

or passenger pigeons in the sky.

Do you still keep poetry books? I asked the librarian.

I’m not sure , she said.

She had to do a search

Then called the chief librarian who came with a swagger

Looking for that rarest thing— a poetry book.

Here, she said. Here they are.

They were squeezed Between ‘War’ and ‘Sports’,

The whole Western World’s canon reduced

to ten books on a tiny shelf.

And the ultimate irony?

There were more books on extinct animals than poetry.

I checked.

 

do you see evidence of the death of poetry?

when’s the last time you bought a poetry book? or borrowed one?