Kurt Nimmo- Two Poems

complaint

my wife tells me
I make too much noise when I walk.
she can hear me all the way in the bedroom.
I am stomping and she hates it.
I imagine a tiny tyrannosaurus rex
clomping around in his underwear
with foreshortened arms and a huge head
the mouth held open. so I start to walk on my tiptoes
like a fucking ballerina but that doesn't work.
on the second trip to the fridge
to get a refill from the wine cube
my calf muscles cramp.
so I go back to stomping as I have always stomped
and I hear her sigh from the bedroom
where she is reading a book.
the conclusion remains
invariably the same.
old habits are hard to break and
you can’t teach
an old tyrannosaurus rex
new tricks.


end times

the poets
are writing safe poems,
cryptic poems, poems that would not
disturb your grandma,
poems that dissolve,
poems that you can sleep through,
poems incapable of reflecting significance.

I read hundreds of them. few are memorable.
even my own are pale and unremarkable.

there is no Walt Whitman of this generation,
no Gaius Valerius Catullus.

maybe it is a warning,
maybe we’re finally done as a species,
maybe civilization is finished
once and for all.

there is nothing to read.

all that is left to do is burn down the libraries
and dance naked in the woods.