October 2024
Author's Note: Here are a couple of slightly spooky poems for the October theme.
lake fog
i felt it in my sleep
lake fog laying siege
to near-defenseless thoughts
no dainty creeping in
on little cat-feet
the voracious mist
reeked of dead fish
and lost dreams
accused me of wasted days
forgotten loves
life half-lived
and hidden sorrow
Originally published in Dead Snakes
Bogey Man
Bogey Man
We talked late into the night
Like Scouts around a campfire
Telling tales as tall as—
Well, as tall as we were,
The scarier the better.
An audit by the IRS,
A broker gone to Mexico,
College costs and three more
Yet to send.
We kept our bravest faces on
Determined not to show how
Deep fear runs when salted with reality.
Like the grinding steady pressure
Of slumping economies and
Pink-slip syndrome that sometimes
Ends in suicide because
Everything was not enough
And then was far too much.
So the shame, the shame, the shame
Became too much for 'you know who'
And on the eighteenth green
he scored a final hole in one
The incongruous 'crack' of the bullet
Was all the applause he heard
As his world went black.
The friend who came running back
Couldn't talk about it.
Not then to the police,
Or later to the media.
Our own talk died quickly
Under a sudden sense of
Our mortality,
Our frail smallness,
The almost tangible touch
Of the reaper reaching
For the first one to close his eyes.
Originally published in goodbye sounds like, Cyberwit Press 2023
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