On Global Warming

 

You think I don't know, that's your

whole stupid problem. You don't

believe in anyone. You

must enjoy living in a

dark lonely universe. I 

don't know if you know or not

about the lights that live in

your own head, but I believe

you probably will one day,

and I also believe it

 

doesn't matter. I'm making

some new music here where I

can. I'm just painting pictures

of paragraphs with reeds on

their trilling faces, but it 

might as well be butterflies,

who live to see just how high  

things will grow. The world's a big

kitchen sink kind of place, I

like to walk around, see the

 

goofy galleries all for

myself. Yeah, sometimes I even trip

over the mess in the far

stairs corner, but then I usually

find it's just the 

next changing of the seasons.

I don't want to hang a sign

on a sad beautiful old

tree for you, well maybe some

other time, you know. Because

 

I'd rather spend this rainy

Saturday afternoon at

my local bookshop looking

through the poetry books for

nothing but a little fun. So yes, I'm 

glad I'm alive and bouncing.

You think your knowledge is all

there is to flying a kite,

but that's just what a closed mind

looks like on global warming.    

Bonus poem:

The Fuck-up by Darryl Price

 

We're all trying to get to someplace safe. If that's an illusion at least we once shared the dream. Not you, all the others. Kids mostly. You don't like the million to one odds. I get it. You'd rather hedge your

bets with a little emotional blackmail on the side. If I only had your cold-hearted stare as you walk away from the crying fires again and again. But I made my only sane choice for me a long, long time ago. You and I

were never meant to be smiling at each other friends. We could be lovers, if you got to dress up for the part where you walk away with your middle finger stuck high up in the air. Such a swaddled in the dark with scarves martyr. It had nothing to

do with being you. Being lost, all me. Being lonely, me as well. You've never had to be lonely and walk through it alone. You've never looked at a familiar street and wondered how to get home again before being

cruelly captured by all the menacing many-eyed trees. Must be nice. I don't know. Maybe it's just as boring to a long-nailed soul that won't stop spinning in its own self-made bed. Karma may well have been the

third party to our apartment in paradise, but she still wouldn't leave until we kicked her out and swallowed the only spare key. I don't remember when I fell from grace because you wrapped your blindfold around my eyes so many times

so quickly, and so neatly. The bruises just began to appear out of nowhere and I felt myself slipping away. Then I did the only thing possible. I opened the door to one of my best poems and disappeared down the

unknown sinkhole of song looking for the authentic lost wishes I must have dropped into the well with the rest of my change. I came out poorer, but clearer, and I'm still making my way back to a physical reality holding onto a familiar enough hope.