Photo by RDNE Stock project (Pexels)
‘Lament’, ‘Kiss Me Goodbye’, and ‘Soap Bubbles’
Hiram Larew
LAMENT
Oh Caution, you are such a sucker —
Try saying Wait
Hold on a minute
When all the day starts sinking or sobbing
Or the compass goes from North to South
Without warning
And here’s the thing
All of your thinking twice
Or every drop of Maybe so but maybe not
And every chicken left uncounted before it hatches
They are all worrisome tricks
Yes Caution you are a sap —
There is nothing you do that comes close to
A smack in the face
Or a hard-news shock
So why not throw yourself to the wind
Like wise fools do
KISS ME GOODBYE
If we had to throw things overboard some night
In an emergency
To save ourselves
What would we pitch?
We’d probably toss flip flops first
Because they don’t know beans
About treading water
And next to go would be
Houseplants or rockers —
Those kinds of things can’t help us float
Eventually if the situation got bad
We might start sacrificing family treasures
Such as anything monogrammed or gilded
Or tissue wrapped —
As important as keepsakes are
They can’t hold our breath
And finally
We’d pitch everything else over in a fit
Of panic
Even this plate of pasta
Because any chance of surviving
Will cost at least triple as much
As it did
Larew reads ‘Kiss Me Goodbye’.
SOAP BUBBLES
What I truly know is this —
All of my book learning and street smarts
wouldn’t fill a tooth
In fact when the least little wisdom is called for
I’m overflowingly clueless
A dumbo
Most of the time
I just float along as if inside a soap bubble
Blowing from here to there
Up in the air unaware
For example if I thought I ever knew history
I don’t
And if I’ve ever understood anyone at all
then they’ve not been born yet
And if I foolishly hoped to wow the world with brilliance
well where’s the light bulb dodo
All I understand sort of
Are weeds
But even they dammit
Cocky as they are
Grow up to outsmart me
Hiram Larew is the founder of Poetry X Hunger: Bringing a World of Poets to the Anti-Hunger Cause. Larew's poems appear in recent issues of ZiN Daily, The Iowa Review, Poetry Scotland's Gallus and West Trade Review. His most recent collection is Patchy Ways (CyberWit, 2023).
Larew's books can be bought here.
Websites: www.HiramLarewPoetry.com and www.PoetryXHunger.com
Twitter: @HiramGLarew
Facebook: Hiram Larew