Brenton Booth- Three Poems

KILLERS

You want to scream

but you can’t

you want to cry

but your ability has gone

you want to kill

but that would make you

just like them.

MADNESS

You get these poets

that imagine writing

to be a courageous and

brilliant thing

that their words are

essential for the world

to hear

that they are great gods

forged by the heavens

to make things right;

which really sounds

quite ridiculous—

but no more ridiculous

than most the things we

accept as truths:

and far less destructive.

IN THE CAGE

It started pouring down thick

sheets of water and it was

8:09pm on Boxing Day 2010

and both my feet had calluses

and I’d just finished a 50 hour

week and would begin another

one tomorrow and I looked at

my Christmas present

it was a Randy Couture figure

I then thought of when I went

to Las Vegas and trained at his

gym

sparring in his cage and doing

reasonably well—

though we all have our victories,

most smaller than we’d like

though big enough to allow

us to keep them out of the reach

of others

and tonight like everyone else

I know another year will be gone

in a week

and I hold on to whatever I can

to keep me going.

Bio: Brenton Booth lives in Sydney, Australia. Poetry and fiction of his has appeared in a variety of publications.