Pretending you are a bumble bee
amongst a field of flowers. A match
amongst a field of dry hay. A Satellite
amongst a field of stars. I suppose
people from different places pollinate
things in different ways. I try to keep it simple.
Pretend I’m not a mad man in a mad world.
Not the dubbed voice of a salesman
with a catchy jingle playing underneath.
Nothing deeper than a postcard. Obey the laws
of physics. Plenty of fruits and vegetables.
Don’t smoke. Don’t drink. Don’t think
too much. Mother was not invention.
Father was not Uncle Sam. My first car
didn’t even have power steering
much less air conditioning.
Such a struggle just to round a bend.
I welcomed the flames that finally claimed it.
Now I’m ready. Ashes to ashes and so on.
Sometimes things start out as one thing
and then become another. A scarecrow
becomes a friend. A waiting room becomes
a museum. A tap dance becomes a testimony.
You are almost sixty percent water. It makes
sense that you get seasick. It’s to be expected.
Patrick Meeds lives in Syracuse, NY and studies writing at the Syracuse YMCA’s Downtown Writer’s Center. He has been previously published in Stone Canoe literary journal, the New Ohio Review, Tupelo Quarterly, the Atticus Review, Whiskey Island, Guernica, East by Northeast, Door Is A Jar, Jokes Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, Doubly Mad, What Are Birds?, The Main Street Rag, and Toho Journal.