Years Weigh on You Like Steel Feathers

April and its madness,
December and its sadness,
n between green things grow,
are harvested, eaten, covered in snow.
The world turns brown and bare
but you are glad you’re still there.

Trees creak in the cold wind.
Bones and joints ache along.
For better or worse
you’ve sung your song,
and would again, given a chance,
if any stranger should listen
and offer another dance.

The Islands

Beyond the sea
where crabs walk low
along beaches
white as snow,
the wind lifts the fronds
of coconut trees,
and locals dance
whenever they please.

Strange as it seems

It’s just another day.
One of the kind
that comes in a package
of seven,
at a discount
we are told,
but who really believes
advertising.

I saw the sun rise
through a crack in the blinds.
It woke me from a dream
where words were being said
that I thought
I should write down.
They sounded important.
Possibly divine.
Asleep I could not lift a pen,
On waking I forgot them all.

I settled for bird songs
from new residents
crowding freshly planted
fruit trees in the garden.
The trees seemed
too small for nesting.
Maybe the birds
were trying to get in
on the ground floor
while the tenement
was under construction,
growing homes
for growing families.

This was something
I could write about,
though I could not
understand the meaning
of the words then or now.
Another divine muddle.
Another day.
I should be used to it,
but never am.

The signifier and signified

Words. Words.
I learned to speak.
I learned to hear.
I learned to read.
I learned to write.

Words. Words.
An evil fix.
Better to grunt
and point
and be misunderstood

than create civilized noise,
supposedly articulate,
but always insufficient
for the need to communicate.

What I shall leave you

Ah, my children
I will leave you no gold,
only boxes
of untyped poems,
barely legible
or a total mystery
to the eye.

It will be your problem then,
all those words
that had to get out,
as much a part of me
as the flesh I wore.

What will you save?
What will you burn?
Which, if any,
of these strange offspring
will survive?

I hold no illusions.
These small beasts
will waste away,
shrivel, disappear.

The only works of mine
that will go on are you.
Composite works
of which my contribution
was less than half.

That’s fine. As it should be.
You were the best art
I could create,
with ink still wet
and many pages left
for you to write on your own.

Because

Why write it
if it will not last?

Why think it
if it will only
stay in your head?

Why say it
if you don’t
mean it?
Or if it will hurt?

Why open up
to anyone
in anyway
if what you need
to let out
will get you beaten,
imprisoned, killed?

Why say or write
or think at all?

Just sit in silence,
unblinking, unmoving.
Be a part of it all
but not a moving part.
A rock or a pillar

or a stone thrown
through the sky,
unaware and uncaring
of where you will land.

December Birds

I listen to birds fighting on my roof.
Dozens of them.
They make so much noise
and tear at shingles.
I can’t understand what they say,
the subjects of their arguments.

My cat would kill them all,
just for fun, if he could,
but can’t get up that high,
can only watch from a window,
snap jaws and wave paws
at desires he can not reach.

As for me, I would like to understand
what all the fuss is about,
wish they would not poop so much on my car,
and think how similar their struggles are
to rivalries in offices, neighborhoods
and among nations.

So much noise and violence.
So much of which I can’t comprehend.

Eventually someone will have to fix
all that got broken,
clean up the messes left behind,
when the current flock finally decides
to fly south.

Joseph Farley is former editor of Axe Factory, Poetry Chain Letter, Implosion, Paper Airplane and other zines.  He has had over 1300 poems and 130 short stories published so far during his 40 plus year writing career. His fiction books include two story collections  Farts and Daydreams (Dumpster Fire) and For the Birds (Cynic), and a novel Labor Day (Peasantry Press). He has also penned nine chapbooks and books of poetry. His work has appeared recently in Schlock, Horror Sleaze Trash,  Home Planet News Online. Corvus Review, Ygdrasil, Eunoia Review, US 1 Worksheets, Oddball, Alien Buddha Zine and other places.

You can find more of Joe’s work here on Ink Pantry.