Month: June 2023

Due or undue? that is the question

UNDUE bills don’t bother me, don’t make me
PALER than before. I snap my fingers at them,
QUELL not my heart, and take no notice of their
GUISE as bills that truly quell, empale, because they’re due.           

Guilt

GUISE of hope falls, even momentarily, leaving faces
PALER from the fearful launderer, who demands
UNDUE loyalty from all and threatens to
QUELL uprising with prejudice.

Disorder

TIGHT as the night is black,
SHOWY as a flowery border,
BRICK-thick as Oamaru stone, is
ARDOR without order.         

Photo: Willem van Valkenburg
Building in the old quarter of Oamaru, NZ, where Oamaru stone buildings abound.

Thirst

BOOZE, inward fire of an inward frailing, yielding view
ASKEW on self, on life, all blurred by buzz, curved by thirst.
REUSE crutch, drink each day’s addled quant of time outside of time.
PAYEE: mad, sad habit. Payer: liver, or the thread through it all, or the better moments never met.

GUILT–theologians argue its inheritance, moderns banish it from
BIRTH. Yet he knows, in sober moments: his thirst is his own.
QUOTH a voice between his ears: perhaps today I will not drink, will
EVADE my urge. And then, as thirst builds, says the voice: perhaps tomorrow.

STUNG to soul’s root by thirst, he asks: is there in the
SHAPE of him, in the depths of him, any part of him that does not
QUAIL at facing life, that does not flee his day, that does not
BLURT to him: drink, drink, so this day might wane and tomorrow seem far off?

BRICK of alley wall, he stumbles, he slurs. Brick more solid than himself–
TIGHT chain, as it tightens, loosens hold on all, till self seems glassy leaned on brick.
SHOWY beauty of drink, light through amber fluid, showy burning in his throat,
ARDOR of his thirst: what substance in this show, what memories to call his own in the chambers of a reeling mind?

Brazilian Steak

BRICK fire pit becomes grill,
TIGHT with cuts I’ve never heard of before,
SHOWY display of gluttonous indulgence.
ARDOR of meat and conversation lovers sets the scene.