WHILE YOU WERE OUT
Keep quiet about the way things are and pay
The price for paying attention. Name one
Reason anyone should keep their temper.
People who think other people are crazy
And aggressive often turn out to be the best
Examples of both. I could promise to destroy
Myself for love to stay out of jail if we get out
Of this alive and sane, but please remember
That would be nothing to brag about. Or are
You waiting for the next life? The story never
Ends which means the story never changes.
The last working computer in the world
Will only do one thing, perfectly—run an
Ad daring us to die a happy death if we can.
A LAST SPARK BEFORE THE NIGHT
Sorry to say, the father-and-son stuff isn’t working for me
Any longer. I once told a therapist I could hear his flowers
Screaming—the serene expression of boredom on his face
Melted away like years of rain slowly eating away at a desert
Hillside to let a tomato-red boulder race down at the exact
Moment a car full of unrehearsed singing runs across stage.
Why bother then with I guess you had to be there or you should
Have seen it when, if I could plan every horror in advance,
I would’ve been sure to write you a long note on little cards
Spritzed with some rare perfume that smells of burnt tires
And church incense to warn you, but I’m not, so this will
Have to do. My bed of newspapers confirms the grand variety
Menace has to offer in explaining a detailed secret everyone
Knew a long time ago for reasons that continue to escape me.
RANSOM NOTE
I was after something extreme.
I said, it’s nice to walk and talk.
Nothing more to say than that.
It’s nearly summer by the way.
Humid and getting more humid
By the day like a leap of faith.
I’m leaping out my skin for you.
I hold it up to the light for shade.
Somewhere nearby, a stolen car
Is being driven the speed of light
Across light years to a place it
Will never arrive in one piece
On time but turns out the way
It was meant to be, sad to say.
ON TIME AS PRINTED IN THE PROGRAM
Collapse upholds the appearance of stability—
Watch the innocence of a baby at play dissolve
Into a smile drawn in the sand floor of a pool—
And yet, since its calculus is only half of who
We are, intricately bursting with so few things
To say, in a high tone filled with shimmering
Delays, as in a horizon stuck repeating versions
Of itself in decline and we in love with our own
Applause as if that’s what we are—the pattern
Is bizarre, the rest is a lust for what’s missing—
Sunlight and the dream of sunlight keep us
From stating the obvious, but unable to fathom
What’s far too familiar, dares me to speak
In the clear voice of an emperor’s auctioneer.
❂
AARON FAGAN is the author of three collections including A Better Place Is Hard to Find (The Song Cave, 2020).