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Tag: public decency

Response to the next table over

Published on April 10, 2013

I think I feel my stomach turn
to hear you from our seats;
but I cannot turn off my ears
to block your hurtful speech.

I wonder, have you any clue
just how much I despise
that vacuous, self-serving look
that comes into your eyes

whenever you begin to speak?
I doubt you understand
more than, at best, the rare odd word;
your tastes all run to bland.

You are my test of tolerance;
I struggle to contain
the pure disgust I feel each time
your mouth transmits your brain.

The bile you spew, the mindless drool
you parrot makes me ill;
I shudder to imagine
the size of your karma bill.

And yet, I cannot hate you;
I cannot take that course.
It costs me too much to maintain
dislike without remorse.

10 APR 2013

The Pairing of Waterfowl

Published on March 8, 2003

They may pass restrictions on public shows
of affection as spring weather appears;
even as the snow melts and the ice floes
recede, their frozen hearts play on our fears,

telling the world only of love’s dangers,
insisting it be explored only in private,
so that we live our whole lives as strangers.
Yet even a child sees madness in that

when spying a pair of ducks romancing,
an amorous splashing there in the pond,
their green and brown feathers merged in sunlight.

It is only the universe dancing,
which reminds us to sometimes look beyond
our limited sense of morals and right.

08 MAR 2003

for LJ user seamusd