Poems
by Richard
LeDue
Just Another Lazy Bastard
Watching my pay shrivel up
like a dead plant
I made sure to water
every day,
always sure to open
the curtains each morning
so the neighbors could see
I wasn’t dead yet,
and I even played Brahms for it
(on a thrift store CD
that multitasked as evidence
of my own frugality).
Bad Backs Made Worse By Soft Beds
Without any grace,
the world makes a strong argument
for dancing with whisky
every night
because of all the late buses
with drivers drunk
from ideas of right-of-way,
because of all the wrong
weather forecasts
about heatwaves and blizzards,
because of all the right
weather predictions
about heatwaves and blizzards,
because of the politicians
smiling the same lies
as thirty years ago,
when the sun was also dishonest,
promising warmth,
while the future would be
sore knees, bad backs
made worse by soft beds,
aching bones
held together by a truth
no one wants to hear.
Automatons
The people arrive home
at the same time every day,
like perfectly programed robots,
except their metal is skin,
their oil is red,
smelling of old pennies,
and their brains wired
by someone no better.
