Tyranny
A font of words spews forth, but
wisdom leaches into the soil.
Perfidy, perfidy all.
Ancient tomes where wisdom resides,
but mangled metaphors.
Pontifications from on high, but
webs of deceit and lies.
Truth is tyranny itself. It hides
in wiffs of smoke.
Abandon your stillborn quests.
Come join me,
a loaf, a block of cheese and
a bottle of wine
That’s all there is, there isn’t more;
rationality is a brutish tyrant.
Frustration
Having a long fuse, I don’t get angry.
It takes forever for me to get frustrated.
Doggedly, I persist, muddling through
the most tedious tasks.
Never turning into a blithering idiot;
never shouting obscenities or throwing
things, I bite my tongue even when
the wrench slips and I bust my knuckles.
Taking great pride in my patience, I
don’t like to brag, but I never get mad.
Then one day, I met my match. My wife
bought me a new shirt. I tried it on.
The buttons were the size of the head
of a pin in the buttonholes were starched
shut. Struggling to button my shirt, I
tried a thousand times.
Cool and calculating, I labored away,
but after an hour, I hadn’t buttoned a
single button. Stopping to catch a deep
breath, grabbing a pair of scissors, I
cut all the buttons off.
The Meteor
Raging hands;
a blur.
Vaunted strumming;
raspy voice.
Shrieks and screams.
1000 wannabes.
Glitzy strobes
flash gaudy displays.
A meteor
bursting on the night sky.
Riding the crest,
but going nowhere.
Booze and groupies
all you could ever want.
Today: a burst of fireworks.
Tomorrow: forgotten.
—-
Mike Berger is an MFA, PhD. He is retired and writes poetry and short stories full time. He has been writing poetry for less than two years. His work has appeared in seventy-one journals. He has published two books of short stories and seven poetry chapbooks. He is a member of The Academy of American Poets.
