What do you expect?
Niceties and pretty words
Tied round into a neat bouquet,
Bound with sweet sentiment?
Look elsewhere then.
You can find this with ease
On shop placards and inspirational clothing.
I do not provide that facile comfort
Or join my voice to the specious clamor.
Only seek my work if you care to find
The hidden barb that wakes us in the night,
The grinning skull that lives within our mirror,
The sharp dagger we carry behind our backs.
Kindness, beauty, and truth dance around us,
Held in the cries of dying children,
The perfumed stench of garbage mounds,
And the glint of light off the barrel of a gun.
We turn back to our familiar dramas, our distracting entertainments,
our serious gardening, our daily concerns.
We forget, forget, and forget again.
Of course we do, in our commonplace struggles.
Still this knowledge remains.
I won’t write it away.
Not even for your smile.
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