No One Heard Them Scream as the Plane Spiraled Downward

Commerce

Their soft little minds beg to be mystified.
Confusion is sublime. So many poets,
Peddlers, can induce it with their
Thoughtless lines. Fame and fortune
May ensue. The art decays, but that's
All right. The poets feast on cheese and
Crackers, shaking hands with softened
Minds, and thanking them for reading,
And for their rich parents' food and wine.


Circles of Hell

This is our fate, Melissa. We have done
The best that we can do: the mediocre
Colleges, the majors no one cares about,
The loans, the dismal circling back into
Our parents' homes, and rooms which
Mock us with their juvenile compact
Disks and brick-a brack. It isn't as if
Time has stopped. It's worse. It's going
Backwards now. My mother asks me
If I'd like a roast for dinner. I don't care.
I thought, I dreamt, that, after school,
I'd feed myself in my own home, and
I would not be one more servant saying,
“May I help you, ma'am?” for wages
Which won't pay my loans. I'd be,
Instead, the one who's served,
The haughty bitch who finds a flaw
In every item that she sees, and throws
A fit until the man who never has kind
Words for me, comes out and fawns,
And takes her hand, and begs her to
Accept what she had wanted for
Three fourth's the price. I see
Surrender in his eyes, and I see
Hers. She's crushed his soul and
Chortles, knowing that that's so.
She'll take her prize and drive back
To a mini-mansion up the street
Where she will gloat until her
Husband, rising young executive,
Comes home and asks her what's
For dinner. “Roast?,” she asks.
He walks away. Some steps up
From us, Melissa, she, too, knows
And hates her fate, and realizes
That she's done the best
That she can do.


Curtain, Please

I just want it over. Six days of rehearsals
Now are done. The show's tomorrow,
And it promises to be the same as it has
Been for several weeks. The lovestruck
Fool will find his maiden. She will
Shrink. She will not speak, and he
Will wonder whether she no longer
Wants to be with him, or simply
Fears that she'll be seen. The upshot
Of each is the same. He stares at
Her, his heart destroyed, then walks
Away, though, until now, the Fool's
Returned. He finally sees that there's
No point. He won't go back, and he
And I, the character, the actor, our
One head sunk into our two hands,
Declare together we just want
It over.


A Bit Late, Isn't it?

We cry as we are standing, watching
Someone's corpse go in a hole.
The corpse is not the one who's dead.
It's just a thing. We shouldn't weep.
Our love also was clearly dead,
And, thus, when I said that I
Wouldn't come to see her anymore,
All that I did was drop another corpse
Into another hole. I cannot understand
Why doing that would make me cry.


Irreversible

The sharp-toothed portcullis slams down,
Tripped by this knave's single word:
Goodbye. He shrugs, already pushed
Away. The maiden sits somewhere
Inside, and, even with that word
Unsaid, that gate still hanging overhead,
Would not have welcomed his return.
She'd ceased to smile, did not speak.
She tapped her foot impatiently
Each time he came until he left,
And those taps, though light,
Crushed his dream. Beyond her
Walls, he took a seat upon the
Curb of that grand street which
Might lead someone else to her,
And weighed the consequences
Of expressing that conclusive word,
Goodbye. The portcullis now
Blocks his way to what he never
Could have reached. His rises,
Turns and starts to leave. “Too
Bad,” he says, and shrugs.



Poetry by Lawrence Beck The PoetBay support member heart!
Read 70 times
Written on 2016-02-01 at 01:07

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