Precipitants
by Gary Hardaway
The Upside of Evil
If human beings
were any damn good
we wouldn't have literature.
Exhortation on the Sea of Postliteracy
Cling to the lifebuoy of language
even as the buoy takes on water
and you sink below the waves
into the abyss of anachronism.
Rhetorical Advice
It can't be “Black”.
Make it Anthracite,
Obsidian, or Shadow.
Something that glimmers
its opacity— nothing so
pedestrian as black.
The Newest Mop Is No Defense Against the Sediments
Whatever ingenious device they hawk,
we'll never win
the ongoing battle with dirt.
It will bury us.
Cross Town
The watched watch
dominates the lives
of regulated men
who know
when the shift ends
there's very little time
to drive crosstown
and be on time
for the second shift.
My favorite of the bunch-"Rhetorical Advice".
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*Claps hands* Love them all. *
What a thought in Cross Town - what a dark, inevitable image. Also connect with Rhetorical Advice. Impossible to argue against The Upside of Evil.
Good set. *
Things like this fall out of me quite often. I need to start catching them again.
I like these, Gary.
My sediments exactly. *
I'm going to tack this up on the wall. Read it whenever I need a chuckle. You are brilliant, Gary!
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Liked them all, especially Cross Town for the many aspects of our troubled lives and times on which it touches.*
Nice wit & bitting humor combined! Next time I teach Intro to Lit I'm gonna put "The Upside of Evil" on my syllabus. (with permission, of course).