It Must Be A Poem

 —Poetry by Richard LeDue, Norway House,
Manitoba, Canada
—Public Domain Photos Courtesy of
Joe Nolan, Stockton, CA

 

 

MOURNING THE PETALS

Another evening flat as a trampled daffodil,
which no one noticed as they hurried
somewhere they won't remember in a week,
but I feel the crushingness, and mourn the petals
that could have inspired a painting
or comforted a grieving lover.

Instead, we're more focused on mud
tracking through a clean kitchen,
and how we need to believe in well polished floors
meaning more than we have nothing left to say
because silence is strong enough to survive
footsteps going nowhere they haven't already been.

 

 

 

 

MY FIFTEENTH YEAR (ANOTHER SELF-
INDULGENT POEM)

I've sort of forgotten who I was
because I focus too much on who I am
at 43, which is a very unromantic age
compared to fifteen, and I could say
all the usual expected things,
like about having a first drink or kiss,
but I think thinking about my next glass
of rye whisky is more useful,
and I'm certain all the hope
I had back then hasn't died,
yet it's grey haired and worried
about wrinkles too,
although does anyone notice any of this
other than me?

 

 

 

 

AS CELEBRITIES GET POLITICAL

Is it possible to betray someone
you never met?
Probably, because our imaginary dishonesties
are always worse than the truth,
and the ghosts of famous strangers
haunt our brains with an intimacy
we keep well fed with silence
and by refusing to accept
they don't even know our names,
while our dead great grandparents
mourn us for being
so in love with the wrong ideas.

 

 

 

 

WILLING TO WASTE YEARS

People ought to earn their cynicism or nihilism,
instead of inheriting it like their grandparents
were given a belief in god and heaven

because now living has become like money or
jewelry
fought over after someone dies,
leaving people so damn sure they're right,

that they're willing to waste years, spending them
on hate,
when love would have been more dangerous
of an investment with the only currency they truly
have.

 

 

 

CLICHÉS FUELED BY LOVE

I wish we never kissed,
but instead spat polite hellos
while we passed each other by
because our first kiss tasted
like spit. After all the lies,
dressed up as poems,
reassured me of rose flavoured lips
and suns setting inside of eyes,
only for me to learn true disappointment
is two tongues dancing like slugs
desperate to drive away loneliness
(my third or fourth kiss
with the same girl),
leading to a breakup as predictable
as clichés fueled by love.

 

 

 

YEARS LATER

Constellations in the cool autumn sky
remind me of your last words
shining in my mind years later
as I navigate life,
while winter promises going in circles
and footprints so easily filled in,
that I wonder why
more people don't say hello.

 

 

 

 

IT MUST BE A POEM

Losing a staring contest with a blank page
feels a lot like being lost in a blizzard,
following footprints that fill in
fast enough to prove the moss on tombstones
wiser than any name or date
or witty metaphor appreciated by so few
that it must be a poem.

But sometimes there's stanzas, still as trees
in summer on those days when the wind
has nothing to say, and the leaves,
luscious in their greenness,
forget their autumn colours a bright prelude
to the sort of death that makes a poet
believe paper can blink.

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

AT LEAST THE HANGOVER PROVES
YOU’RE STILL ALIVE
—Richard LaDue

Sometimes, the dead are an empty table
in a bar on the wrong side of your brain,
where you order beer and retell stories
you heard so many times
that you believed in immortality,
only to black out,
swallowed up by the silence and darkness,
which steals the light behind eyes
and leaves memory orphaned.

_____________________

Newcomer Richard LeDue was born in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, but currently lives in Norway House, Manitoba with his wife and son (8 hours from Winnipeg, if that helps). He is a Best of the Net nominee and author of 3 chapbooks and 5 full length collections. His latest book, Second Hand Salvation, was released by Alien Buddha Press in 2023. Welcome to the Kitchen, Richard, and don’t be a stranger!

Read more about Richard LeDue at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Richard%20LeDue/author/B09DX9YL4T/.

_____________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

 Richard LeDue

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A reminder that 

Stephen Meadows, Rina Wakefield

and Moira Magneson will read

at Pollock Pines Library today, 4pm.

For info about this and other

future poetry happenings in
Northern California and otherwheres,
click on
UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS
(http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html)
in the links at the top of this page—
and keep an eye on this link and on
the daily Kitchen for happenings
that might pop up
—or get changed!—
 during the week.

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