a lone ancient dark night
Your engine stumbles
rumbles, coughs to a stop
so close to E
The gas pump, blocky, digital
smells of gasoline
like a primordial dance
an intercourse of machines
rape of a Mesozoic age, processed
Petrol in a tank, deep
Swipe card, digital hum of circuitry
Choose your poison, your savor
Buttons—regular, premium,
Reek of diesel
Corruption
So many fingers have touched
that white square button
almost flesh-looking
White, pale, cracked, peeling
The horror of the mundane
You need to touch it
You want to
You have to
You have places to go
And miles before you sleep…
They are now but cash cows
(a trough in which to quaff)
for the many attendees
who sit on long-winded
Government-funded investigation committees
no one around to hear the sound
(of what falls in the woods)
while their coffers swelled
for all the papers printed on the ecology
more than several trees were felled
the fracking drilling boring too
(found underground)
wastes water in copious quantities
releases greenhouse gas
and undermines the earth in the final analyses
deliberate discussion and debate
('til the cows come home)
to which they are compelled
only exacerbates the issue
of global warming
with all their hot air expelled
they stand at the bar
tipping poison into their own drinks
smiling like devils with cherry lipstick—
their eyes cold and wet,
like alley cats wet from the rain.
they love to tell you
you’ve misunderstood the truth
you’ve got it all wrong—
your shadow’s on the wrong side
of the street.
they hold up a mirror—
you see yourself cracking
like cheap glass—
they grin,
one step back
one step ahead—
professional gas lighters
burning the soul right out of you.
There is nothing dainty about my wind
It lifts me out of my chair said old man Flynn
He rocks the house and the garage interjected his wife
I just let them rip, he agreed, thus, I have no strife.
Spreading fast from West to East
Did it come from Man or Beast
The pungence just hit my nose
Everywhere a foul wind blows
We've got winds to the North
And winds to the South
But the winds West to East
I can taste in my mouth
It floats through the air
And sticks to my clothes
Everywhere a foul wind blows
I said EVERYWHERE a foul wind blows
Turning the pages backward
I find pressed flowers in my old diary
from the day we saw
lavender growing in the woods.
The sun was swallowed by clouds
that were halfway to a metaphor
and you told me the eye color of love
was dark hazel, the very depth of my own.
In a packet of handwritten letters
I find polaroids taken at a cemetery.
I remember I told you when I die
pour hot honey on my grave
to wash away my small-town sins.
Your manifesto,
written in a gas station bathroom:
you mourned never having learned
how to properly smell peonies
and failing to share blood and wine
with people who don’t exist.
You kissed me
and I told you things the moon told me
under streetlights and stars.
You replied if it ever ended
to burn it all.
In my hands I hold a broken promise.
Harris can’t run from her record, for sure
Never admitted Biden's health was poor
Not running ‘half-assed’
She’s turned up the gas
Insisting the southern border’s secure
We drove crime and it made us mean
But now we appear more serene
Without exposure
Global composure
Improved with lead free gasoline
In 1952 a robot stopped by the Sinclair gas station.
Walked up to the pumps and had an instant celebration.
Gas station attendant was horrified but stayed away.
As the creature filled up on gasoline that weird Tuesday.
You bombed, bombed
Now you airdrop aids
You killed, killed
God’s children
Pregnant moms
Innocent women
Poor toddlers
Weak boys and sick men
No reason
You poisoned water
You robbed, robbed
Now you want
To give sweet ice cream
To children
You are crazy
You are sick
How naughty
What a shame
How nauseating
The world is at war
This is sickening
Hypocrites
You are, yes you are
You bombed, bombed
You killed, killed
The world is at war
Humanitarian
Food, bombs and missiles.
Copyright © March 2024, Hébert Logerie, All rights reserved
Hébert Logerie is the author of several collections of poems.
Life goes quickly growing up from the use of a commodore 65.
Perforated print paper
Really takes your energy.
Fold and Tear!
Fold and Tear!
Every so often the edges
With the holes placed every millimeter amuse me for atleast five minutes.
Jump to ten years later as I sign up for my first email through AOL.
Still my main for sure contact or solid way for anyone to reach me, I stand firm in its support.
Life trickles down into o the earth’s core where warmth and safety from the information super highway can be found.
Wait, so what happens if polarity introverts?
Oh the earth shoots a bunny
you blame me
and I die laughing
with my legs in the air
kicking my feet
expelling gas
because it is you
You are selfish
and stingy
never worrying about anyone but yourself
and you say it is me
I made you
I forced you
I am the reason you…..
You are beyond hope
beyond help.
It has never been me
as it was never us.
It is you
as it always was
even when you said we were together
we were never a thing
you are too into yourself to ever be a we
I pity the fool who comes around next.
I am still expelling gas
you have that effect on me.
It's cold though sunny, the temperature's twenty,
as Samantha flies out the door..
I try to explain again and again, it's not summer any more..
She opens it wide.
My heat goes outside.
My gas bill will surely soar.
I remind her each day, this utility she will pay,
but all she does is ignore..
("Creation Myth 101", 2018, original encaustic)
Make Believe and Crazy
A world gone mad
Upside down, inside out
And if you don’t like it
You must be a phobe.
Gaslighting's nothing new
But today it’s all the rage
In the name of a new religion
Of which thou shall comply.
But if you don’t
Where does that leave you
Old and in the way
Or ready to slit our wrist.
It’s all make believe and crazy
No longer's a spade a spade
Now it's whatever you choose
A hoe or rake by any other name.
Maybe that’s the condition of some
But it used to be
It wasn’t the delusion of all
Till asylum walls were overrun.
Now in the name of compassion
Everyone must drink
The Kool-Aid of confusion
Or else…”The doctor will see you now...”
(11/9/23)
I’m staring at my notebook;
The page is lined but blank.
I’m like the driver with no map
Or gas within the tank.
I’ve got the engine started
But I have no place to go,
So I’m sitting here in neutral
With my spirits sinking low.
It doesn’t happen often
That my mind will not engage,
Yet my musings somehow managed
To get words upon the page.
It’s almost time for typing,
For what finally seems clear
Is that sometimes simply idling
Is enough to get in gear.
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