identity theory

interviews
fiction
nonfiction
music
social justice
film
books
visuals
verse
blogs


verse

A Bad Day

A poem by Nicholas Messenger

 

 The kid is scared of a balloon,

         runs bawling while his sister

         bandies it unkindly, keeping after him.

         The bang inside it lurks.  It likely
chuckles

         if you only knew a way to let it get out

         bit by bit.



         He doesn't care about a thing like beauty

         though you couldn't call it beauty.

         Not exactly.

         If it wasn't quite so full of that expletive

         which, on uttering it is left so little limp

         and total death, it could be pretty.



         He isn't sure he hates it more

         inflated and explosive like a big bird

         nudging at his nerves,

         or its disgusting aftermath, slack, slick
and tattered.

         So he screams to see it swell and then he
sobs

         at its collapse, a waste of breath.



         This is the boy the rhea bit from in its
grill.

         It bruised his soul.

         The gorgeous stalk of stuffy mop and snake
of neck;

         the glare swung with the hooded hook.

         How could such glorious presence break with
ceremonial ?

         They traded glowers, and swapped, perhaps,
offences,

         and the kid escaped with tears.

 

Winter 2006-2007 Poetry:

AS WINTER COMES by Nancy Abdel Messieh
BOUNDARY STONES #1 & #2 by Alison Eastley
WHAT HAPPENED by Lakshmi Krishnan
SYLVIA PLATH by Brian Willems
(tanka) by Dorothy McLaughlin
A BAD DAY by Nicholas Messenger
REVOLUTION by Heather Larsen
DIRTY FLOORS by Sam Friedman
JULIA by Michael Internicola
YOU ARE PART OF THIS by A. Thiagarajan
INAUDIBLE GESTURES GROWN ALL TOO COLD by C. Allen Rearick
HOW LONG THE NIGHT WAS by Gary Charles Wilkens
DREAM OF THE GARDEN by Lance Newman
SHE by Aimee Cirucci
LAUNDRY BOY'S CHANGE by Julian Haladyn

 


join
sign up for the identity theory newsletter.

your e-mail:




latest stories





Print this page
E-mail this page

 

 

All work on Identity Theory -- with the exception of the public-domain classics -- is copyright its original author. The site is best viewed with the most recent version of Internet Explorer.