Angelica Tao Poet Rhyme

Ashes and Me

Like the worst ice cream with a rotten waffle cone.
Ashes I bemoan.
Like a soggy magazine I used to read.
I tore it all up indeed.
In the epicenter of dreaded days.
I’m funneled through this haze.
That urn in the living room seems to squeak and squeal.
Yet never a ghostly reveal.
I wish he would come out of the treacherous ash.
So I can do something rash.
I could scatter the ashes anywhere I wished.
Surely he wouldn’t be missed.
But keeping him, trapped on the shelf.
Helps me reach a higher self.
So I can give him grief while he’s trapped in there.
Remembering he lived and died in despair.
He’s like keeping my least favorite ice cream in the freezer all the time.
Which is my only crime.
Can’t say that about my old man.
But at least I dumped his horrible van.

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Alison A Smith nee Howarth August 24, 2026 at 11:55 PM This darkly comic poem uses deliberately offbeat comparisons and tight couplet rhymes to give grief an unnerving, almost surreal domestic presence. The ice-cream, magazine, urn, and van images make the speaker’s anger feel tangible and personal, while the blunt final turn lands with memorable bitterness.