3 Poems
by Ron Sitton
For You, Again
I am the innocent bystander
Caught in your world
Completely off guard.
We have no chemistry
We have no feelings
Only instinct.
Drawn and repulsed
Our magnets dance.
Manipulative situations.
Shredding the Dissertation
Piece by piece
Deconstructing
Six years of work
For $30 (paper shredder), choice intoxicants ...
and time.
The joy of destruction
Just precedes
The power of accomplishment.
Why 'Not' Fear
Have you watched the news?
Mr. Politician tells me
I should be scared --
Of what?
Airplanes crashing?
More people die in car wrecks.
Terrorism?
From us or them?
Or do we so easily forget Oklahoma City?
My response --
Why fear?
Roosevelt said,
"The only thing we have to fear is fear
itself."
I agree.
After all, the worst that could happen is
I'll die.
But you'll die, too.
We all die.
Get over it.
It's going to happen.
It's what we do while living that's important.
But 'they' say ...
Surely, 'they' cannot all be wrong?
That fear I dismissed in junior high.
But society ...
You know it's going to hell in a handbasket.
Only when we refuse to see each other as humans.
And what about ourselves?
Aren't we all terrified about what WE could do?
Duh! It's never us; it's always the other.
(Guess we did forget Oklahoma City ... and Waco
... and Columbine ... and Jonesboro)
OK, how about those divisive influences and
radical thoughts!
(Like worshipping God above all else
And treating each other like we'd want to be
treated?)
"The knowledge that we fear is a weapon to
be used against us."*
*From Rush's fear trilogy, "The
Weapon"