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Editor's
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Five
Poems from
The
Harmony & the Irony
by
Colin Dodds
Half
the Pain
Walkin
on a sunny day,
feelin
only half the pain
I’m
just a big fat man
But
I think I understand
Meditations,
words of praise
But
still nothing ever stays
And
it gives me a lift
Every
thought is a gift
And
when I’m no longer bored
I
cry out oh lord
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The
Ledger of Blessings
Through
New York City, the world is demystified
The
clouds bubble with the city’s orange and blue lights
My
clients, the sparrows, consider me while I eat a sandwich
What
a mixed blessing it is to live so near the zenith of a
civilization!
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Screws
In
memory,
either
everything or nothing
impresses
The
things you love
come
and go on a strange tide,
and
never return to the same spot twice
Every
stone, every hill is conditional
Never
mind how you or I feel,
Never
mind what you or I think
We
all know what the world is
but
pretend otherwise
a
thousand ways
And
when you
put
the screws to reality,
it
screws out from under you
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After
the Teddy Bears' Coup
In
a future set adrift,
in
a year without a proper name,
in
the uncounted days
of
the reign of the soft authority
The
teddy bears marched
in
their triumphal parade
down
Candy Avenue,
their
swords still drawn
The
people at the table next to me
discussed
the
perfect shower
Every
word they said
blotted
a thought, aborted an idea
They
have ways of keeping you around,
unbalanced
and shop-bound—
the
heavy, repetitive music
that
makes it impossible to think
The
bright blather of a life nearly televised
that
ties the tubes of our minds
Communism,
NPR, the numbing lunches,
all
the patient castrators
It’s
a sickness
dressed
as a mercy
But
in limbo,
what’s
another lazy lie?
The
tyrant denounces
chocolate
abomination cake
with
her mouth full
Ain’t
she cute?
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Work
Week
The
days passed like nights.
The
road was dark and glistening
with
the hateful promise
of
a weekday morning.
I
can already see the old people,
the
people who look like me—
the
reasons they call it a work week.
It
takes so little to turn us into robots.
I
say Good
deal through
numbed lips,
when
it is, in fact, not a good deal at all.
Drunk
two nights in seven.
I’m
a fool to think they haven’t seen my kind before.
I
turn up the punk music,
getting
all worked up just to sit around.
This
thinking is useless,
like
a cement that corrodes.
All
the solutions are stopgaps.
All
the reassurances are false.
All
the certainties are unearned.
The
Mormon Tabernacle Choir
sings
“Walk on the Wild Side”
through
the ceiling tiles.
And
if God the Father took one good look
from
down here,
He’d
demand a paternity test.
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