Poems
by KJ Hannah
Greenberg
Imprecation
Spoken curses, most often, tend to unfold like malformed roses.
From afar, such look lavish, even opulent, granting their verdant
Petals, their sumptuous blooms.
Nonetheless, closer inspection demonstrates their meager virtues;
Deceivingly gilded motes are anything but luxuriant, discounting
Massive populations of thrips and sawfly larvae.
All scourges, in fairness, work to multiple not plush moments but
Social blights upon the heads of “enemies” as well as “comrades.”
Banes rarely discriminate.
Thus, if espying a bouquet of words, it’s best to suspect they can
Contain social aphids, white flies, also scale. “Pretty” is relative.
Plenteous “beauty” oft sullies.
Recusal
Withdrawing from judgment on the grounds of possible bias might
Be noble, else the work of a pedant character, all OCD else ADHD.
Learning’s never been a call for displayed grandiosity. Abandoning
Responsibility’s no merit; it’s ersatz justice. Sure, intelligence culls
Workarounds—inferior substitutes rarely get questioned, measured.
Like clubhouse autographs (promises made with autopens), guilds’
Excessive concern with minor details stays a flag, continues on like
Rhetoric perfusing rules with loopholes as well as with rich dodges.
Disavowing one’s aptitude to arbitrate is equivalent to sidestepping
Big deals; inferior proposals just can’t offset answered ambiguities.
Most self-excusing folk are not really disqualified; they’re smitten
By glowing reviews of persons whose negligence was spelled out
As “unqualified.” Yet, it’s “clever clogs” who bark like dogs when
Social bodies fail again to ignore McGuffins or useless documents.
“Irrelevance” ought to be concerned with those servants’ acquittals.
Aggressive Attempts
Aggressive attempts to disorient, to addend infixes to words on top of people,
To alter the assessing of similar types of happenstances, repeatedly, lie outright.
After all, our civilization oughtn’t honk over falsehoods. Fibs never made
Us better; merely, tall tales perjure or worse given their economy with truth.
Consequently, invention’s no moral sanctuary, no ever after setting, not
Even an exaggerated fairytale. Basically, misrepresentation’s dishonesty.
