For the degree, the Letter,
the something that makes everything better,
the fact that rhyme play is the words you say.
Whether afraid or lame,
or blameless and nameless,
we all have something to say in the lines of the page.
The sage, trusting something beyond judgment,
wondering who can be trusted,
Or busted, rusted, or nutted.
The gold has been gutted,
so Sally keeps strutting.
Whether or not the weather runs rain or snow
in this indigo flow,
there is no entrance or exit in this sideshow,
so we exist in the ether.
In the golden sunshine,
The sun sings Sublime.
It’s summertime, the living is easy
other than summertime spazzness.
I guess that’s me.
We think something is catastrophic,
soporific
and oddly specific.
Whether the world falls in golden-hour light,
or something more trite,
take the noontime and night
and make something at least bright with your life.
The passion of sounds
as they grab sea from the solar eclipse
and sounds punish the lips
of topless dancers
who dance for tips
and shake their hips.
The run-on sentence means nothing
when the density flips
and something sounds like a brash crack,
the sizzle of steak on the grill.
The world is as counterfeit
As a three-dollar bill.
It doesn’t really matter
who falls,
Or falls asleep completely.
The poetry fits me,
even if I can’t fit completely in anything, really.
So I play with the words,
dance off prepositions and verbs,
and just think.
Oh, what a wonderful world.
As the world dances
and swoops down like an eagle landing,
drowning in something too big to understand,
so I sit back,
calm,
with my pen in my hand,
look down at the words,
wait for the page to end,
just to begin again.
Jason Wright is the editor and founder of Oddball Magazine. His column appears weekly. His third book, Train of Thought 2: Almost Home is available now at the Oddball Book Store.