Gnarly Poems — Nov 21, 2021

Neighborhood Watch

They are unfriendly folk
which is hard not to resent
when a neighborly wave
receives a surly response.
What did we ever do
to them?  
Besides resist the bark
of their political signage? 

Perhaps it’s more about
what we didn't do --
Have children. Join the 
usual trench wars. 
Or welcome them to the 
neighborhood all those
years ago, our shyness 
too difficult to overcome. 

Lessons

Home an hour late.
His eyes are bright –
never a good sign.
They have the brightness
of anger, of where 
were you and why 
didn’t you call?
The kind of anger
I never understood 
as a child, when lost 
in a store and found 
by an angry parent.
When did love turn
so hot and prickly?

Fear, my friend.

Some say the opposite 
of love. 

The Anger March

The woods smell of smoke;
the golden light has retreated.
It's been a long day, nothing 
occurring according to plan, 
the unexpected armored in
carbon-black, and I have more
than stumbled to comply.

My heart refuses the consolation
of philosophical maturity; instead,
anger pounds it with a happy fist,
and I long to be released of 
the day's "neutral" energy. 
Nightfall and bedtime cannot
arrive soon enough.

We are told to seize the day
and not wish time away,
but sometimes the best place
for it is to be done and away.
Let us be seized by tomorrow--
the consolations of dawn,
and the chance to start over.