Kurt Nimmo- Three Poems

the small things in life

yesterday
I ventured out of the house
to buy a flashlight and batteries
for a storm
that did not materialize.

today
I stayed
in the house
all day.

I have no reason to leave.

occasionally
I will turn back the curtain
and look at the world out there.
this morning
I saw the neighbor
tending his flower beds.

the neighbor and I
have one thing in common.
we both like to drink beer
although

we never drink it together.

he likes
to talk about
when he was a soldier.
I never talk about
how I ran away
from becoming one.

I sit
before a typewriter.
it is the kind of work I like to do
and will likely
continue to do until
the day they
carry me out of this
old house
minus
twenty one grams.

most people die in the hospital
not their own bed. what a shame.

that is
my wish for today.
to be left alone
and to die in my own bed.

it is
the simple things
in life

that make people happy.


end times

my wife
is out there
talking
to the neighbor.

I don’t talk to the neighbors
unless absolutely necessary.

I have
nothing
to say.

I am not a misanthrope.
I simply have not had good luck with humans
so avoid them when possible.

my wife
comes in and says
the neighbor
believes it is the end times.
it has never been this bad
he tells her.

he’s talking about the rain.
it will be historic and gloomy
over the next few days.

it has always
been the end times

when
humans are
involved
I tell my wife.

rain is secondary.


conflicted

one of those
hot and humid Texas afternoons.
I sit here looking
outside
and the sun
suddenly disappears
allowing an angry rain
to assault the
window.

one of those days.
I want to break something.

a lifetime of words
and situations and half remembered faces
and smoldering recrimination
threats deadly as the asphyxiation
of charcoal smoke towering up and
twirling with muddy blades
in the vortex
of a ceiling fan.

instead of
breaking something
I pull on a toenail until the edge shears off
down to the quick.

sometimes
I think
murder might be possible
and then I slink back like a child
in awe of sun and rain.

sun defeats
rain beyond the window.

I stare at the
incomprehensible wonder
of green cellular life.
it is all
beyond me.

I lift
the glass and
take a
drink.

there.
I feel better
for a
moment.