THEIR GREAT ESCAPE

I drowned in 1982.
It was a slow yearlong death.
Being blown out and sunk
in the middle of a lake
I never knew I was sailing on.

Yeah man blown out, not up,
that would have been too kind
to a heart exhausting itself.
Fighting to stay above water
on the ripples of the big bang.

That brined heart hasn’t been found of them
to whom it should have mattered most.
They did not care to look
only to slowly escape the sight
of the annihilated man.

© M Durfee
6/12/2022

THE GREAT WHITE WALL

Everyone that matters hides behind it.

The sick, the injured, the guilty,

the blameless, the young, the old, and the very old.

The loud and the louder yell from behind it.

The enlightened speak about it on TV but

what they speak is mostly self-serving bullshit.

The cult followers pray to it,

hoping for the change they spent their faith and fortunes on.

(MAGA promises RULE!)

The flag wavers and sign carriers,

all have a position that is absolute

and that's the only correct one to solve every issue...

just ask the blue-eyed Jesus

who has a permanent place behind it.

 

Behind the great white wall

you cannot have an abortion.

or any other health care not

provided to old White men.

But you do get to buy as many

guns and cannons as you need

Because behind the wall they need

to have live targets for mass shooters and

a population that ensures enough victims

and a statistical advantage at census time.

Can we out fuck THEM, like we outgun

THEM not found behind the wall?

Can we try?

Old fat guys hiding behind the wall

have a new purpose; baby daddies

(if only I had not gotten that vasectomy!)

Do you know who is not sheltering behind the great white wall?

Everyone not trying to hang onto a God damned cruel history.

© M Durfee

6/4/2022

 

THE SEED

I died in the germinating light of the morning.
Light enough to see…
but not the hot noon day cooking sun…yet.
I am glad for it,
dying in the cool shadows, that is, because being overly bright
was never my forte.
I could get around, sure, but no one that I ever met would call me
a substantial thinker.

I was a denizen of the timeline where my brilliant father
codified in me my failures.
He was though a good guy to them he respected,
mainly vodka.
All these years removed from him, them, that place.
memories of that life cycle;
now mashed together in a plastic bag manufactured by time
leaking out, dying in the exposure.

I do not regret my living or my coming dying.
Regret
after the apology is a fool’s game. I have been a fool but not at
any time near now.   
Dylan cried for his father's life “Do not go gentle into that good night…”
his father did in fact die—so did he.
“Good to forgive. Best to forget. Living we fret.
Dying we live.”

I prefer Browning, and Bob over Thomas.
Wee and old, all die.
That time is both near and far yet we live fearing
the unstoppable.
That ain’t living now, is it? Fear is life but let it be
the life of someone else.
I died in the germinating light of the morning.
Light enough to see and grow.

© M Durfee
5/15/2022

 

IF ONLY ICARUS COULD SEE US NOW

IF ONLY ICARUS COULD SEE US NOW

A life (no wings needed)

spent climbing above it all.

What or wherever the fuck “it all” is.

Doubtless even at 90,000 feet

there will be some damn drama

to keep them, who soar,

dressed in Amazon’s finest,

entertained.

Rockets dumping tons of shit

into well polluted air,

racing past our organic wax and feather suits,

immediately melting the biodegradable dreams of a few.

Over populating the cosmos with wealthy

“themables.”

Rocket folks, them able to pay for seats

to take them away from it all for 11 minutes.

Upon completion of that 11 minutes of almost in space

everyone says how awesome it is; “up there!”

Life changing—

I masturbate longer than 11 minutes—doesn’t change my life

but it is awesome with no travel needed.

it does however let me know

I don’t need to ride in the sac of a penis shaped rocket

to experience God’s creation...

You know soaring ain’t that expensive

just some wax, wings, and wind expressed as hope.

Perhaps a little grain of faith expressed as action.

©M Durfee

5/10/2022

ON BEING A SLUG

In a world gone nuts,
two gastropods
are intertwined breeding,
sliding on a string of snot.
Slick snot.

They are in no hurry
to be right or wrong
in the way they do it;
rappel that is.

The mollusks are
of one mind.
Just working
at getting
where they’re going.

There truly is no rush.
Just be a slug
and we’ll get there.
Wherever our there is.

© M Durfee
3/26/2022

 

HURRY THE END

As some stand frozen in the frigid temperature

of their hearts what shall we do for that evil?

We do what we do well; we go to war remotely.

Power, power is a terrible thing

when it condemns them stuck in place

by the barren winds of war, starved of life.

Winds that starve the pained and troubled, cool the dead.

We find it easier to look away,easier to save ourselves

as  one by one our companions fall to invasion, the red glare.

The opportunity seekers; political masters, wealthy pimps

who will never know until that at the last second of life,
as the death rattle fades, all are suddenly completely equal.

Everything after death is a show for them waiting impatiently

for the vacuum to suck them into the palace of power where
those who’d rule launch wars because they can; they have arrived.

Their increase is death over men stuck in sadness,

unwilling to go on, to fight for a good life, a kind life

All is empty of thought my hunger is eating the truth of war.

Death’s sting is no worry for the dead for the disheartened,

it is become a welcome thing that brings the warmth of the earth

where finally all that is, is without pain, or sadness, or this mad life.

Call me brother no more for I am frozen, naked and decaying,

slowly crumbling to dust waiting on them who destroyed my life,

to be my equal.

© M Durfee
3/8/2022