J.K. Durick- Three Poems

Backing up the Files

 

They’re put away

For another day

Just the way

I want them to stay:

 

Saved, stored,

Bundled and batched

Arranged, arrayed,

Multiplied and matched,

 

Waiting for me,

For the other me,

The one who wonders

Where they be.

                 How Things Get Done

 

Efficiency can be foreign. Sometimes it seems

cumbersome, inefficient, and frankly, insufficient.

 

Method, likewise, becomes misdirected in this,

as if something random interposed between

intention and result.

 

Determination might work, but rarely does more

than draw attention away, confuses both participants

and spectators alike.

 

Of course, there’s always endeavor and endurance

the work ethic and free will, persistence and even

bravado and bravery, the ability to plan, the ability

to predict, the ability to persuade, to motivate,

to anticipate, to concentrate, and to participate.

 

If all else fails, there’s hesitation, the thoughtful

pause, well timed; prolonged long enough, serves

as a response, distances blame, sets things up,

looks the other way, regrettable, deniable, and

something someone else will  have to handle as

best they can, as best they might.

                             Cold

 

Perhaps the flu. Who knew? Who knows?

Of course, my nose, and those who get to hear

the cough, cough, cough of it, the fit of meds,

the unmade beds, the sneeze of it, the wheeze of it,

the unplanned plan of it all, and that call to work,

the cancel of it, the margins fold in on my cold,

the haze of days, the hills of pills, the oceans

of potions, my inner child wants his mom,

remembers her calm pleasance, her calming presence

at times like these, my inner old man will freeze

wheeze, sneeze, tease, ease, breeze, creeze…

Hey, the whole day has been this way.