Middle of nowhere as the road continues
A hotel sign welcomes my urgent needs
Panic, chaos, as I search for a restroom sign
I burst though the door like a gun slinger in a saloon
Relief
In the wild maze of stalls and panic
I never checked my surroundings for supplies
The roll has gone from white to brown.
No more TP!
Next to me I can see feet.
I am frozen.
I do not make a sound
I feel like I am being hunted by embarrassment
I do not know who is next to me
I make assumptions of their life by the appearance of their shoes
Kind of scuffed and not well maintained
"Spare a square" I would never dare
I wait uncomfortably until they are gone
I shuffle to another stall and again I am whole.
The Hermit,
The Misfit,
Cast into light.
Pushed by shadow,
uncomfortably,
Blinding masses without fight.
Different priorities,
Contrasting Seasons,
Flowing around and behind sight.
From every direction,
Endless layers unite,
No separation in the shine.
Looking closer,
A pillar standing,
Inability to stay polite.
Golds and pearlescence,
Kind and transparent,
Good with all of her might.
my feet are freezing tonight
I cannot get comfortable
I have a snack, drink coffee, have another snack
walk past the sock drawer twice
Play some word games
remember how uncomfortably cold my feet are
think about the sock drawer again
spend twenty-six minutes not walking three feet to the sock drawer
finally break down and put the socks on
now I am comfortable
wondering why I procrastinate?
The Drunk Shy Small Jack-o'–lantern and the Fat Rat
The Drunk Shy Small Jack-o'–lantern woke up
in the toilet bowl
that really needed a clean up.
It smelt like a troll.
She heard a HIIIIIIIISS, and nervously looked up
at a Fat Rat slyly grinning.
She asked, ‘W-w-w-what’s u-u-up?’
The Fat Rat laughed wickedly.
Then he pressed FLUSH.
With great slush
the orange, soft, and
slashed Jack-o'–lantern went down, round and round out of sight.
In a hollow echo she said, 'Oh the fright!'
She uncomfortably spent Halloween night
stuck in the thick horizontal soil pipe Mr Dwight.
There she was stuck with a talkative spider mite!
Grey is for thunderstorms
Bulking pregnant with rain drops
Rumbling uncomfortably
Grey is for soapstone
Treacherously slippery
When rain soaks its fragments
Grey is for forest
When teeming downpour
Presses green into background
Grey is for ocean
Heavy and sluggish
Stretched to the horizon
Grey is for warship
Full speed ahead, throbbing,
Crew at their stations
Grey is for torpedo
A white trail behind it
Lifts warship from water
Black is for deep sea
Embracing the sailors
When the light goes away
What have Tests become
Not really a conundrum
The game’s true fulcrum
To beach bum humdrum
Cricket now plays dumb
Kowtow to cash cow scum
To T20 aplenty did succumb
Moolah the ruler in this slum
Seduced reduced simulacrum
Absurd but heard the word’s still mum
Batters in tatters another LBW plum
Chickens no bantam baby tantrum
Same silly song will willy nilly strum
A dastardly turns bastardly doldrum
Forget regret best bet rule of thumb
Rank dank stank so glum & then some
Beat the drum or Tests simply overcome
Stark dark depths these guys lies do plumb
No comfort for our sport not even a crumb
Our sort annoyed destroyed in Pink Floyd void
In perverse parallel universe worse is to come
So ho hum reeling feeling “uncomfortably numb”
my waste basket reclines on a full stomach,
patting a grated belly
stretching over three course meals
of rotten ideas.
i ask myself why?
you've had your native tongue for,
how many years?
how many months?
how many days
of chatter and quip
could you have spun?
i count the minutes between pencil strokes,
between lines of order and my graphite mess.
i think the only long word i can properly spell is
Tantalized, but only because it's phonetic.
it's not that i don't want to write.
you could only dream of
how i dream of writing praise-worthy poems;
maybe one about a bird braving the storm,
or
how betrayal leaves the
bitter taste of coffee in the mouth.
but then i think of the galleries of poets
who have already written about small birds
or storms,
or both,
and how coffee really isn't that bitter.
and so
mind not made,
my paper stares at me
with blank expression, reflecting
the thick snowy fog
i'd like to think fills my head
instead of empty space.
the kind that clumps up
and trips over itself
like a hairball stuck in a cat's throat,
or a ball of tangled thread.
uncomfortably clinging like an itchy sweater.
no one was saying anything to the bully.
some people were laughing uncomfortably
the woman was berating and belittling her six-year-old boy
my four-year-old daughter walked up to her and said,
“This is why no one likes you. You are mean and you are a bully.”
the woman burst into tears and ran home.
Another mother and I made eye contact.
Ashamed that only a child had stood up.
But I was proud that she was my child.
i step out of the shower
i let the steam moisten my skin once more,
my wet foot steps pitter patter on the cold bathroom floor,
only once will i ever feel this clean
i stepped into the mirrors view,
no longer scared to hold my gaze at my body
this was me, why shouldnt i look at myself?
my eyes glare into my body like it was something they shouldnt have seen,
i felt terrified, i scratched at my skin uncomfortably
i grabbed my clothes and put them on, only to stare back at the mirror,
this reflection was nicer,
well put together, and covered.
nobody could harm me like this, not anymore.
my mind was now foggy, and clouded,
instead of now feeling amazing,
i felt disgust, i wanted to sob.
the mirror steamed up once again, i quickly wiped it off
i held back the tears, only to feel a lump growing in my throat,
the terror and worry crept back into my mind.
because even though i had just took a shower,
i felt so dirty,
all over again.
Three days ago.
43 minutes began.
To count down.
I hear it.
Time continues.
And holds on.
43 minutes ago.
Was when I started my day.
Days, and days, and days.
Eyes endlessly blinking.
Then the prodding continues.
46 minutes ago.
I remember things.
Like hanging up my coat.
Again, and again.
My coat is probably disintegrated by now.
I hate how minutes.
Are trying to deceive me.
Five days ago.
I ate breakfast.
So clearly, I had pancakes.
I ate a hundred pancakes.
I’m convinced that a pancake is following me.
Five days and four hours ago.
I was driving in my car.
I didn’t die or something.
But something happened.
The eclipse or something.
It followed me home.
43 minutes.
I stood a few feet from here.
Looking at myself hanging my coat, I am glaring at my future self.
Getting nothing done.
My feet are holding me up uncomfortably.
Feet going numb.
She gave me a call.
Two minutes ago.
When the 43 minutes started.
I let it go to voicemail.
I think they are evil and about to come through the portal.
43, 46 minutes, 4 hours, and five, three days.
And I still haven’t hung up my coat.
I dilly dally my way through a regular Monday
Icy rain covers my driveway by three o’clock
I slip and slide on it, weather reports come in
Monster storm is coming; the kind you get once in a century
My friends begin calling me
Do I have enough food and water?
I have enough to last six to eight months.
Also a hundred pounds of dog food for my two pony dogs.
Tuesday I awake to snow as tall as my porch
It is not bitter cold, but it is uncomfortably cold.
Wednesday is the kicker.
We are supposed to have more snow, more ice and fifty mile an hour winds.
My feet are cold tonight; I wonder how things will go in the morning.
Our temperature is going to drop from 28 to 16 degrees.
The interstates and highways around and through Kansas City are closed.
Mayor asks us to all stay home; schools are cancelled.
The electric company sent us a notice to expect outages.
Monster storm, you deserve a name.
I will call you Monster Helen after the meanest teacher I ever had
And the nicest teacher I ever had, both named Helen.
the sun’s temperature exceeded the absoluteness of herself
every day this week had been one hundred and six or higher
I saw the sun now as oranges and reds, no longer innocent yellow
What is she doing to us? I wondered, will we perish?
Will it be our own fault? Because of what we have done to the ozone layers?
Too sticky and humid to think, the worst uncomfortably hot.
Her orange eyes bored through the guilt of my soul.
I was not innocent in this.
We suspected as much before we saw their wedding cake
With the bride raising the groom in the air, our friend Lake
Lake laughed uncomfortably, being embarrassed a tiny bit.
I was kind of hoping that this guy would not go through with it.
But they got married, and she spun him around.
She was the bossiest woman he could have ever found.
We heard a bit later that Lake went underground.
I figured out where he was, but he made not a sound.
Newlyweds in Michigan City trailng tin cans pause at the stoplight.
Car hauling distraught looking man on a rope races out of sight
You don’t suppose that’s her husband! The new groom said.
Oh yes it is, said the bride. He’s my uncle, his name is Ted.
But it says they have been married thirty years.
My Aunt Agnes is awful, she told him, thus, his tears.
The new groom stared at his bride uncomfortably.
We won’t act like that he said. She smiled and said “we shall see.”
Poetry is a seat you struggle to get comfortable in and when you do you change seats.
John G. Lawless
©8/14/2023
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