{"id":2630,"date":"2012-06-18T10:09:12","date_gmt":"2012-06-18T14:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gadflyonline.com\/wpblog\/?p=2630"},"modified":"2012-07-30T15:11:45","modified_gmt":"2012-07-30T19:11:45","slug":"tyranny-and-other-poems-by-mike-berger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/tyranny-and-other-poems-by-mike-berger\/","title":{"rendered":"Tyranny and Other Poems"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Tyranny<\/strong><\/p>\n

A font of words spews forth, but
\nwisdom leaches into the soil.
\nPerfidy, perfidy all.<\/p>\n

Ancient tomes where wisdom resides,
\nbut mangled metaphors.<\/p>\n

Pontifications from on high, but
\nwebs of deceit and lies.<\/p>\n

Truth is tyranny itself. It hides
\nin wiffs of smoke.<\/p>\n

Abandon your stillborn quests.<\/p>\n

Come join me,
\na loaf, a block of cheese and
\na bottle of wine<\/p>\n

That’s all there is, there isn’t more;
\nrationality is a brutish tyrant.<\/p>\n

Frustration<\/strong><\/p>\n

Having a long fuse, I don’t get angry.
\nIt takes forever for me to get frustrated.
\nDoggedly, I persist, muddling through
\nthe most tedious tasks.<\/p>\n

Never turning into a blithering idiot;
\nnever shouting obscenities or throwing
\nthings, I bite my tongue even when
\nthe wrench slips and I bust my knuckles.<\/p>\n

Taking great pride in my patience, I
\ndon’t like to brag, but I never get mad.
\nThen one day, I met my match. My wife
\nbought me a new shirt. I tried it on.<\/p>\n

The buttons were the size of the head
\nof a pin in the buttonholes were starched
\nshut. Struggling to button my shirt, I
\ntried a thousand times.<\/p>\n

Cool and calculating, I labored away,
\nbut after an hour, I hadn’t buttoned a
\nsingle button. Stopping to catch a deep
\nbreath, grabbing a pair of scissors, I
\ncut all the buttons off.<\/p>\n

The Meteor<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>Raging hands;
\na blur.
\nVaunted strumming;
\nraspy voice.<\/p>\n

Shrieks and screams.
\n1000 wannabes.
\nGlitzy strobes
\nflash gaudy displays.<\/p>\n

A meteor
\nbursting on the night sky.
\nRiding the crest,
\nbut going nowhere.<\/p>\n

Booze and groupies
\nall you could ever want.
\nToday: a burst of fireworks.
\nTomorrow: forgotten.<\/p>\n

—-<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,219,199],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2630"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2630"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3611,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2630\/revisions\/3611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}