Poetry confessional

So… I was really into poetry in college, as I’m sure many of you were/are (I’ll have to tell you about the depressing poetry contests, sometimes) but I hadn’t written in years. As Mark Twain said, “Contentment does not lend itself well to verse.”

Then… I kind of went through a super stressful time lately, and my first poems in years suddenly fall out of my fingers. And, since you’re a captive audience, I’m subjecting you to them.

000

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Nero fiddled while Rome burned

But no one thought to ask

If it was he who struck the match

If the slide of bow across strings

Was a mock of the city he’d felled

Without an army at his back

A celebratory dance

For the destruction he’d conjured

Or if he saw the flames

Only when others did

Tasted death as it was carried on the wind

And reached for the fiddle

So he could spend his final moments

In song

000

Somewhere, the world is ending

There may be warning signs

Arguments in the night

Whispers of disappearing money

The slow fading of the light in their eyes

But that final morning

Always keeps its silences

Never admitting

That this will be the last moment

Before your own private apocalypse

There will be no time to mourn

No companion with you in the bunker

Only blue skies

That seem a thousand miles away

And the memories of a world

That lies shattered at your feet.