It’s

                             Never

                              Okay

                                To

                           ­    Treat

                              People

                                Like

                         ­      They

                                Are

                           Disposable

I

always

          Find

Freedom

               In

          Disappointments

                By

                   Changing

               My

             Perspectives

This is dedicated to whomever (“’whom,’ he said, for he had been to night school.”)  mentioned existential angst the other day. At first I misread “existential angst” as “existential ants,” and so for you and for all who suffer existential angst and existential ants:

                                                  Existential Ants

All creepy ants are existential ants
If ants across your old blue jeans advance
And bite into your tender skin by chance
You leap into an existential dance

And swear profane, wild, existential chants
Your good companions look at you askance
Each with a wondering existential glance
They seem to be in an existential trance

As you flail among the flowering plants
Because of those wicked existential ants!

I am a poet who cannot write,
a reader who cannot follow a sentence.

I wear four sweaters yet cannot feel warm,
know secrets I cannot tell.

I want to run but have no place to go,
I am screaming but cannot open my mouth.

The pen is poised in hand engaged
Awaiting rhyme or sage
Thoughts to give it motion
Absent the flow of love or rage
Unmoved but exhausted it lays down
Crisp blue striped sheets turn brown
After what seems an age
Dust completes the task of covering the page
Ideas unexplored, untold emotion
An eternity passes by
And possibilities unborn die