Vexations
There was no need to slam the door.
Just a quick snick would have made
the same statement.
Is there any moral name for your
misanthropic delight?
You consider love an unimportant
theme.
Most find that so very trying.
Like a dog that thinks that
everything barks,
gossips mistrust each and every,
their imagined hearings make this
so.
And as long as our backs are turned,
you worry the slope of tight
enclosures,
and worship shadows that frame all
your thoughts.
Your only smiling times come
as your malice finds a useful scale
upon which your brooding is weighed,
and the scale tips heavily in your
favor.
Transparent comeuppance, on your
part,
in a most repugnant enterprise,
earns you the award for the most
damaging destruction.
You, having painted an unstable
sky
that blasts the land with the
disgorgement
of ludicrous thunderclouds
that rain down your well-earned
wergeld,
the blood money squeezed from your
soul.
I can only pray that,
in some social order,
the rest of us will give the
photographer of each mind his own darkroom,
and hope the photos print more
pleasant and true.
Linda Imbler
Linda Imbler’s poetry collections include six published
paperbacks: Big Questions, Little Sleep, Big Questions, Little Sleep” second
edition (expanded with 66 additional poems), Lost and Found, Red Is The
Sunrise, Bus Lights, Travel Sights, and Spica’s Frequency. Soma
Publishing has published her four e-book collections, The Sea’s Secret
Song, Pairings, a hybrid of short fiction and poetry, and That Fifth
Element, and Per Quindecim. Her new book, Spica’s Frequency, will
be published on December 1, 2021. Examples of Linda’s poetry and a
listing of publications can be found at lindaspoetryblog.blogspot.com.
In addition to writing, she helps her husband, a Luthier, build acoustic guitars and steel strings in Wichita, Kansas, U.S.A. They are currently working on number 10.