Surviving February

R. Horton

Surviving the shortest month should be a piece of cake.
The light begins to filter back in February,
and family falls away to a comfortable farness.
Snowdrops remind us of colour to come,
and the nights are nearly negotiable now.

Mid-February brings chocolate hearts, flowers
and artificial expressions of love,
disappointing and hollow (to be sure)
but reminders of the humanity we pretend to crave.
Connections can be ours, if we really try.

I don’t know how you managed to pull me through
January’s dark, but I’m grateful to see the smile
arriving earlier every day in morning light.
And you don’t have to hold on so long or so tight.
The terror of night is briefer, more tractable now.

A Weak Man

R. Horton

I don’t think he was a weak man, really. I mean, yeah, he was sensitive sometimes, but he was also into extreme sports: motocross, skateboarding, anything with wheels, you know. Maybe he was a little depressed from time to time, but that’s pretty normal, isn’t it? I think it was a little harsh of her to say he was wallowing in it. I personally, would never say depression was a “luxury,” but I guess that’s just how she saw things. Like everybody else, she had her own ideas. Maybe that’s a woman’s prerogative.

But I still thought she crossed a line sometimes. I’m just saying it seemed pretty mean to me, and you’re entitled to your own opinion, but I thought it was cruel to say she was disgusted when he broke down. I mean, they were children for God’s sake. He comforted the mother, he comforted the father, and he did his best to look after the family. He gave the eulogy—imagine giving a eulogy for children!—and everyone said it was really nice and how he was a good writer and everything, and that takes a toll, doesn’t it, and maybe everyone should get a moment to sort of lose it?

But I guess some people don’t think so. Some people think it’s different for men. This therapist told me it’s harder for men to access their tears, right? They grieve differently. I guess in order to not disgust anyone, they grieve differently. They grieve alone. And that’s what he did. He just cried his eyes out with no arms around his shoulders. No one handed him a tissue. He cried in the car in the driveway late at night. He cried in the shower. He would drive to the middle of nowhere and cry through the blackest nights. No one saw him access his tears. The counsellor never saw him access his tears and went on believing that men can’t access their feelings.

So again, I wouldn’t call that weakness, but I guess a lot of people do. And I guess he sort of believed it, too, and he changed little by little. He just got used to being alone, you know. He enjoyed the outdoors and spent many hours camping. Everyone was excited when he finally showed an interest in something. They were happy when he started talking about hunting and bought a gun.

Insomnia

R. Horton

I will die awake.
Decades of insomnia foretell
my ultimate sleepless fate.
Wide-eyed and anxious,
I will finally realise my doom,
the culmination of decades of fear
of dying alone, untouched and
staring only into indifference.

I will die awake,
but no one will know.
Someone will find me later
in a position of apparent repose.
And they will reassure those who love me
(if any are left),

“He died peacefully in his sleep.”

Poem: The Band Plays On

R. Horton

Following a crescendo of violence,
an allegro jubilee of relief and release
brings us all a moment of respite
before resuming the rhythm of the rigour
and ardor of unflinching struggle.

And a young woman tells us we can
be the light if we dare, and her innocence
gives us new hope and a new cadence
for resolute strides to an unknown
future of heat, yes, but also illumination.

Still, this isn’t a cadenza, but a restrictive
repair, a scaffolding of democratic skills,
a dampening of fear and a regrouping
of willing collaborators marching forward
on the promise of hope and camaraderie.

And the band plays on, because the music
of justice has no coda, only refrains.

A Moment of Sunlight

R. Horton

Everywhere he went,
he confronted peace and
rumours of peace.

Each dawn, he would follow
the light on rising roads
and find fellowship with companion
travellers and comfort with locals
sharing a spirit of cooperation.

As the sun passed over,
he and new neighbours he met
would break bread, drink
and laugh with abandon.

With evil vanquished and animosity
dimmed, the world awaited eternity
with clear eyes, dry cheeks
and a pacific breast.

Finally actualised, he sees a reality no
longer tenuous, but one girded on the
impervious foundation of
enlightened belief.

The Other Side of Love

R. Horton
Photo by Vera Arsic on Pexels.com

It all starts in an oxytocin bath,
drowning in aphrodisiac dreams.
Best friends sweating through
amorous bouts of battering lust.

You begin purposeful procreation
and embrace coparenting with zest.
In a blink, you go from saying “they’re
so cute and tiny” to “they grow up so fast”!

Bliss you’ve had and content you’ve been,
but somehow merriment becomes misery.
You begin to hoard a stockpile of secrets
as comrades become combatants.

You’ve identified the Achilles heel. Indeed,
you know every weakness of your enemy.
In a flash, though, you realised the best
hope is mutually assured destruction.

Simultaneously, you begin a charm
offensive and a sinking shame spiral.
You visualise yourself on an open bier
naked before all and licked by eager flames.

Silence Never Ends

R. Horton

I never thought John Cage was
trying to tell us anything about silence.
He told us music never stops,
only listening does,
and what if we never stop
listening? What if we become
so accustomed to focusing
on sounds that we forget to
tune out and block and cocoon?

What if we love sounds
“as they are,” as he says?
Will we ever get anything done?
Or will we be swept away,
dancing to the garbage trucks,
crushing today’s refuse to bits?

Will we sway softly to our own
heartbeats or hum in tune to tinnitus?
We won’t distinguish between the
sounds of skates on the sidewalk
and the instructions of the arresting officer.

As our loved ones tell us we’re the
only one, we’ll be listening to the
dripping of a loveless faucet
or the groaning of a protesting
gate hinge forced to give way.

We will live in a constant stream
of unconnected moments,
drowning in the music God
sent to save our souls.

Billy Takes On The Feds

R. Horton

Now, ol’ Billy liked to talk a good talk. He’d get all puffed up and talk about how he was gonna storm the capitol and take the country back and things of that nature. Well, ol’ Billy had all the courage of a bunny in a dog kennel and all the strength of a tallow tree in a hurricane, but he thought he might just be able to take on the Feds if a few of his friends went along for fortification. And he figured he had about 10 million friends, according to what he’d been reading, so he was feeling pumped up and just a little cocksure.
So Billy went down to the Army surplus store and got a flak jacket and some combat fatigues, the ones with the pockets here, there and everywhere, you know. He had already ordered this cool black shirt declaring Civil War to take the country back from the people who took it away. Things didn’t used to be like this. It used to be that a man like Billy got some respect, but not anymore. No sir, no one gets less respect these days than a white, Christian man who loves women and wants a family. That’s the way Billy saw it.
Billy really wanted to save the world, because he’d been doing some research on how things were going, and he put together all these things on his own. Once you get to looking at things, it starts to come clear. You won’t find out about this stuff on the Communist News Network, because they’re all in on it. They’re all working together in this global secret society that controls everything, and they’re horrible people, he says. He says they’ve been selling children for sex and practicing mind control on everybody.
And all those sheeple go along with it because they haven’t done the research. They haven’t looked into things like Billy and his millions of online friends did. With God as his witness, Billy knew something had to be done before it was too late. Before the last chance slipped by, he had to stake a stand, by God. He might have to lose his life, but at least he would lose it doing the right thing for his country and for his God. He had an AR-15, of course, everybody did, but he got a couple of smaller sidearms, too. They’d be more portable and easier to conceal. He also got himself a Taser just in case he got into close combat.
Now, when Billy got to the capital, it was just like they said it was gonna be. Everyone was excited and having a good time, and they were all glad he came. Even the president came out and thanked everybody and told them to stand strong against the deep state. They had to support the patriots, and Billy was fired up. They were chanting and laughing and having a real good time. They even got inside the Capitol, and Billy couldn’t believe it.
He was going around saying, “This is our house here! They cain’t make us leave.” He had so much fun taking selfies and dancing around knocking things off the walls. Finally they did all have to leave, and he was amazed by how great it was. Man, oh man, they really showed ‘em whose country it is.
A couple days later the thin blue line came after Billy, and he was shocked. He was on the side of the president for Christ’s sake. How could they be stopping him? He didn’t know about any violence, he said. He thought it was just a peaceful rally. He didn’t think it was a civil war or anything like that.

Looking Forward to Further Foreboding

R. Horton

All the seers say the same.
The Tarot Tower looms tenaciously
as will o’ wisps hover wistfully
outside windows closed to hope.

A broken timepiece holds dread
in a cedar closet as days to come
fall silent and the pulse thunders
in unbearable auditory recruitment.

An ominous prophecy has planted
seeds of anxiety germinating till
terror blooms in full flower
in a fecund garden of trepidation.

But the hardy defy the odds,
for what else can be done?
They don their hats, step into
open air and wish you well.