By: Richard LeDue

Never Ending Insanity

Lucidity stained by lunacy is inevitable
as we slay dragons we raised ourselves
with dog food we bought
for the neighbour’s starving dog,
and then there’s your brother who died
from lung cancer,
eating bologna and ketchup
in his deathbed,
while we compared the price
of T-bone steaks in a grocery store,
where the express lane was never the fastest.

I’ll Retire When I Die

Days distilled by dollars,
where blood loses its colour,
where eyes go blind,
while counting cracks
in the same sidewalks each day,
where people shrink,
only to blame it on too much coffee,
but at least the Nasdaq is thriving.

Jugs of draft beer as patient as flowers
on hot days, when sweat drowns
in sweat, giving purpose
to swearing at the empty air,
and in between sips and spills,
I swallow epiphanies that have been
stuck in my throat for years:
I’ll retire when I die,

and my son,
who wears his autism better than most
dressed in their nine to five days,
will need someone else
to change his diapers or worry
about the bananas being too green,
yet cheap whisky, wise as fine china
in a cupboard, offers advice,

leaving blackouted nights
with all the answers,
right and wrong at once,
depending on who you vote for,
inside a brain the size of two clenched fists
that would rather write this poem
than make love to windmills,
just like everyone else.

Be a Fighter

Trying to defeat death
is a lot like shadow boxing:
sweat proving your belligerence,
the technique of fists cutting through the air
as much an art as any poem,
while dreams of bruises painted with blood
should give the Grim Reaper a reason
to pause and wonder at what
it takes away.