David Rogers

Five Poems

                 

                                                                        
This Is Not That Kind of Poem

The dead were all quietly dead
and I guess they were missed

but this is not that kind of poem
The flowers’ scent
was like ordinary perfume
Sun a mundane shade of yellow
sky the regular blue that writers
whose thesauri

are set on a hair trigger
refer to as cerulean
This is not that kind of poem
The stars were not diamonds
in a black sea hung with lacy
wisps of smoky jazzy mist
the sort of mist often found
in that kind of poem
Some people were sad
but it was only ordinary sadness
so they ate some chocolate
and took a nap
and felt much better afterwards
because they were not in
that kind of poem
A horse did walk into a barnyard
and say where’s the bar
I need whiskey
whereupon stagehands leapt
from the barnyard fence
and started to carry away the letters
n, y, a, r, and d
because seeing the horse
and all those letters
reminded them
what kind of poem they were in

 

Times

At times I step aside
watch my life go by
without me

but only for a moment
I don’t want it
to get the idea

this sort of thing can
go on indefinitely
But it’s smart

it learns a little more
each time
This must be

how it feels
to step inside the wind
stand still

 

and look out

at everything going
past so quickly
 

 

Train

(Thinking of Simak and “The Street That Wasn’t There”)

A subway train with one rider
approaches the platform.
The rider is real

but the train is not.
The train passes. The tunnel
is quiet. The train was not real
but its passing was
and so is the tunnel’s quiet.
The rider goes on.
You have been on the platform
the whole time. The train

never stops. You have never
seen the rider
but you know he sees you.
He sees you each time the train passes.
 

 

Poem

It’s okay to long for
the end of the world
What right does it have
to go on without you
 

 

Poem, redux

It is said
confession is
good for the soul
which means
sin also is good
so the sinner
has always something
to confess
Otherwise confession
must be a lie
and that would be wrong

 

David Rogers' poems, stories, and articles have appeared in various print and electronic outlets, including Star*Line, Third Flatiron's Brain Games anthology, and Daily Science Fiction. His poem "Stone" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His recent story “Hazards of Faster-Than-Light Travel” is featured on Tall Tale TV, available on YouTube and elsewhere. More at Davidrogersbooks.com.

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