Victim Street

So it's really hard to make a poem about an anti-choice activist sound like you're not agreeing with their asshole activities, but I think this might work? For the record, I am pro-choice and disagree completely with my protagonist in this poem.

Victim Street

There’s three elementaries

within a block of my apartment, all

getting out, Thursday

afternoon right before spring. The parents,

siblings, steps, all wait, a church parking lot

or idling by the curb. And another kid runs

past where I’ve been sitting, chalk in hand

for the last hour. One of my signs tips to the side, and

I chant as I write another slogan next to the curb.

Most of them ignore me, the photos and writing

just another thing to navigate in the city, but I

get dirty looks from some of the parents, hear

wingnut, asshole, kook, but I just look

at the babies who run by

and the ones in my pictures. Somehow I’m right,

aren’t I?

Somehow these women are all

making the wrong choice, ignoring moral law

and thinking for themselves. I realize what I sound like,

but I’m in too deep now, family gone, and I really

don’t believe it. The church is all I have left, father

giving me a spot to sit and the photos, signs

I prop up.

Another baby runs past and I draw another

outline on the road.

Cats and Zazen

So I'm sitting zazen in my hallway, staring at the blank wall. Somewhat bored out of my mind, because let's be honest, zazen can be a little boring.

Alice, one of my cats comes down the hallway. This is normal. What isn't normal is seeing me sitting there, completely ignoring her. So she gets curious. She climbs in my lap. She meows in my face, giving me full on nasty barf cat breath in the process. It seriously smells like she ate food made from vomit. This is normal, as she ate her brothers vomit the other day. Then vomited that vomit back up. Classy.

Anyway, this goes on for the remaining ten minutes. When my alarm goes off, she freaks out. Tail-puffed. Eyes wide. Silly me, I go to pick her up. She tears away from me, forgetting that she was begging for affection ten seconds earlier.

Moral of the story? As Zen as cats might seem, they really aren't. Or they've just transcended to another level of Zen.

Or they're just assholes. You choose.