Poetry 23 - Frustration

I've had it up to the final line on my
"Shit I Can Tolerate" measuring cup.
Frustration fills it like a faulty faucet
fixed above a drainless sink.

When push comes to shove,
it shatters to transparent reflections of its makers.
In the sun it will helplessly shine,
and spitefully blind the dimmer mirrors.

Hell,
when push comes to shovel,
you'll be in the landfill.

Poetry 22 - Reluctant Sympathy

The footsteps of his atrocious ambling
are agonizing ticks
in the hospital halls.

"Please leave,"
are words which never escape my throat,
because they are swallowed.
They are swallowed.

The flowers are left,
but I'm not dead.

Sympathetic scents.

Do we leave these on graves,
because we're hoping the dead will smell them when we turn away?
Granted, they want to.