
“As Okay as It Got Some Days” and other poems
By: Richard LeDue
As Okay as It Got Some Days
The silence used to be a tin can phone
I talked to the president on,
only for the line to die in my sleep,
as I tried not to dream
about a nurse
reminding me of my own name
in the sort of head start
for an afterlife I never wanted,
proving all those blacked out nights
cost more than a light bulb.
The Saturday night soundtrack
I barely remember leaving behind
grey hair reminders,
while all my hangovers
said the same thing,
telling me it was all going to be okay,
and I lied to the lies,
swearing I believed in them.
Another Sober Morning
The hotel room walls are white
like a winter that traps us
inside minds afraid of grey hair
or wrinkles becoming another map
no one wants to follow,
while sunlight tries its damnedest
at being yellow, just to make me feel
brave enough to look outside,
where a beer store forgot its red neon sign,
blinking “open” to a closed minded world,
was left on without meaning
to be any sort of reminder for the death
of the person I used to be.
Thoughts on My Favourite Book
I
The cover green as beer bottles
that helped me forget the coming winter,
or maybe mould instead,
making love lovelessly to fresh bread,
and I put the book down
because I don’t want it to be finished
with me and feel like an empty house
that’s haunted by a ghost that’s really a mouse.
II
The author dead for over twenty years,
yet still speaking to me,
as if he knew
my whisky coloured loneliness
the reason for my sorrow
learning how to swim.
III
There’ll be no autograph
wishing me the best, but that’s okay
because death is the sort of distance
making me
realize how far I still have
to go in writing poems
that give birth to dog ears, coffee stains,
and immortality lining shelves
in thrift stores.
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Richard LeDue (he/him) lives in Norway House, Manitoba, Canada. He has been published both online and in print. He is the author of eleven books of poetry. His latest full length book, “Sometimes, It Isn’t Much,” was released from Alien Buddha Press in February 2024, and his latest chapbook, “Mourning for the Petals,” was self-published online for Kindle in November 2024.