On the Bright Wheel

Advice here for the lovelorn? No, I am
The lovelorn. I’m the one whose spirit broke
On the bright wheel, and I’m the stupid joke,
The empty threat, the sacrificial lamb.
My life turned into Wham, bam, thank you ma’am
When you set my head spinning. This sad croak
Is what’s left of my vocal chords. The smoke
Has left me wheezing. You don’t give a damn,

But someone ought to. I’m not asking you;
You’ll only chuckle, meanly, savagely,
Pretending you once did care about me.
What difference does it make now? I could stew,
Or I could hope, but failure’s nothing new,
So I gave up on hope. Despair is free.

Tongs

There isn’t any problem with my heart,
Although my blood has run a little thicker
In the last few weeks. I heard you snicker
When my tongs grasped the last blueberry tart,
Thinking you might be just a bit too smart,
Too slick for me. No one I know is slicker,
But you announced, “I’m sure that it’s your ticker.”
It’s not my stinking ticker. It’s my art.

Don’t think I couldn’t sing this song. I could,
It’s easy. I know all the same damn songs
That everybody else knows, all the wrongs
You think I could be righting, if I would.
But songs don’t do that. You’d have understood
If you had tools for it. Here, take my tongs.

Enough to Rant

I know things, but I’ve never been a sage
And never claimed as much. Some things I know
I learned the hard way: follow the world’s flow,
Admit a wiser man should take the stage,
Or find a woman of a certain age
Who knows a bison’s not a buffalo
And sees the places where wildflowers grow.
I know enough to rant, but not to rage.

I have a little learning, but that’s all,
A modicum, dealt with an atomizer,
Not a fount of wisdom, a great geyser
Of data and discernment, twelve feet tall.
What do I know, then? I have seen the Fall.
I know that you should find a new adviser.