Steps These days, sequential in their order, random in their events. Yet, I am supposed to come through every 24 hours With some sort of understanding, a plan for the next day, and the same every day after. What am I supposed to do? Control the guessing… Suppress the panic… It’d be more human to be a lab rat or a lamb in a Chicago slaughterhouse. I am stupid with my intelligence. I sequence, Collate, Numerate, Alphabetize, Chronicle, Dewey Decimal, Periodic Table, even square root… All fucking useless. More importantly, it all misses the fucking point. Inventory I am the poet, a disaster in stanza, the upside-down verse, enjoying one good mistake after the next. Turn in each ugly line sloppier than the last. The pen is a weak sword against suicidal woes. I scribble nothings across scraps of paper. Really anything I can get my hands on, then lose before I get home. My attempts at bringing the dark side to the outside. Double-Checking the Inventory No shine. No polish. No pretense. I am dirty and unkempt. I from when I should smile. I am a disaster in every human way. Lacking popular respectability, I revel in my ill-repute. My style is blue jeans and t-shirts. My attitude is to smirk with a hint of alcohol. I am the question mark and the exclamation point. The means without an end. Final Inventory As a sane man, I am a catastrophe. As an insane man, I have it rather tied together.
Bio
Okey is a forty-four-year-old bakery employee. He has written poetry since he was a teenager. It was during the pandemic that he finally decided to publish his work. A novel, This Here Night Life…, and a poetry collection, Back to Masturbating Monkeys and God’s Plan, are available on Amazon. These poems are reprints from his poetry collection.
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author & https://poetrylifeandtimes.com See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)
