Michael Mayhew's Shared Poems

O Creative Heart!

How Infinite Are The Ways
That Thou Might Mine Praise
For the Tiniest Hint of
Criticism?

How Deftly Dost Thou
Use Thy Mighty Powers
Of Perception and Imagination
To Transform the Angel of Admiration
Into The Dung Beetle of Disapproval?

Truly, Thou Art the Great
Alchemical Inversionist
Who Turnest Gold Into
Rat Bait!

I smashed my finger
The middle finger
The flip-off finger that was left nameless
After Pointer and Pinky and Ring
Got all the good names

Anyway, I smashed that finger
— let's call it Clint,
"The Finger With No Name" —
Smashed it like a Talking Cricket
Gets smashed with a mallet

Except my finger — Clint —
Got smashed between a
Window sash that I was raising
And a thin strip of wood
Nestled into the curtain

So thin and seemingly harmless
That strip of wood but it
Felt like a dull machete blade
Crunching down on the fingernail

I hopped about grunting and wheezing
Until my kid asked if I wanted to
Swear which I very much did
But I didn't

That was three weeks ago
And Clint's nail —
Blood purple and visibly
Decomposing —
chips and flakes, snagging on
My pocket hem when I reach
For the keys

It fills me with dread
Like a loose tooth
When I was small
It must come off
It will come off
I hate to think of it
I cannot stop

And even now
The new nail grows in
Warped and scarred
Like a grizzled, old actor
Well past his glory years
But still in the fight

The kids at my kid's school
Were gathered for morning assembly
And the Vice Principal made
An announcement

A teacher had died
And people were
Sad about that

"Let's have a minute of silence,"
She said.

And to the best of their
Ability, a couple hundred
Restless kids
Went mute

It's what we do for the dead.
A Moment of Silence.

To which I say no, thanks

When I die please
Have a moment of noise:

Laugh Squawk Stomp Clap
Wheeze Bellow Rage Roar

Smack Burp Fart Sneeze
Weep Wail Scream-like-a-Banshee

Giggle Chortle Holler Howl
Sing Talk Chatter Gossip

Hum Honk Soliloquize Screech
Bang Clatter Crash Smash

Make a Joyous Noise
Or a Miserable Noise

But for Pity's Sake
MAKE SOME NOISE

I'll supply the silence.

Now here is a poem
That only exists
To test the mechanics
Of posting and sharing

Functions which once
Were as simple as
Dropping a letter in a box

Or smiling at a pretty girl
Across the commons
In dappled light

on the Day of the Dead
white dudes have few traditions
to fall back upon,
so I

Re-light last night's
grinning pumpkins,
now withered
and mold-specked

Sip a glass of young wine,
crisp like apples,
and sweet as summer,

Start a poem

And contemplate
the cycle of
things