A WEDNESDAY ORISON

A Wednesday Orison

Weeks piling like dirt on a grave,
where water cooler chatter
is the only absolution of the dead
one gets these days.

Death as easy as smiling
and laughing at jokes out of politeness,
fidgeting fingers forgetting they were
deceased long before 5 o'clock
did its best impression of heaven.

Then a co-worker's heated rant
about snow in the weather forecast
says “amen” with the most words
people pretend to the listen to.

Another Power Outage

The quiet screeches with forgotten memories
of fires scaring away saber-toothed tigers,
yet is drowned out by the stillness
of the fridge and how I feel
the silenced furnace,
even if the encroaching darkness
makes no noise like a stalking cat
measuring the right time
to pounce in seconds.

The sound of missing light loud
from an anticipation that whispers
no warning about stubbed toes,
but sounds more
like someone who forgot their keys
and is more afraid to wake the neighbours
than of the cold
insulating the night from body heat,
which proves we aren't dead.

An old framed photo at a yard sale

hopes to be dropped
so it sounds like an angry poltergeist,
instead of being just another unwanted item
given away to a thrift store,
while its supposedly timeless smiles
blur so clearly
in a way beyond our eyes
because no one alive remembers the names
written in messy cursive on the back.

What's Happening

Cookies with chemical ingredients
that sound smarter than they are
help us to feed the idea
of getting old and breaking down.

The pill bottles lined up
like school children too obedient
to question what's happening.

White hair no longer wise
but instead just another flag,
signalling surrender
to all the machinery predigesting
our food for us
and the prescriptions
we don't even bother to read.

Profits at an all time high.

Richard LeDue (he/him) lives in Norway House, Manitoba, Canada. He has been published both online and in print. He is the author of ten books of poetry. His latest book, “Sometimes, It Isn't Much,” was released by Alien Buddha Press in February 2024.