For Christmas my sister gave me a book of poetry by Yusef Komunyakaa and it has been inspiring me to try a different style of writing. This is the first poem I wrote after beginning to read Yusef, and I think it goes a little bit with my post from yesterday.

The New Old Hat

Every otherwise bright morning finds them coming,
Grey old over-greased drones on fear’s
Autopilot to anywhere but God. Buzzy ant
Tin-foil conversations crinkle into stiff air,
Waxed-up food in plastic packaging tides
Them over. Neon warning signs on their facial
Displays caution the user to avoid at all costs
Anything reminiscent of sticky, bloody, fleshy
origins. Mall-bought lip gloss veneers woefully
Disguise the raw heartache, earphones hardly
Silencing the deafening sickness.
“Hate your job? Have a Starbucks, with a side of
Pretend!!!”
In the eyes, the pitiful resignation to lives of
Tragedy, ideals gasping in gas chambers of empty
Promises, feet lodged in the mud, false comfort
Found in silken white-gloved waves of apathy,
masquerade of pure terror. Cattle being led to
slaughter, preferring not to realize it.
Coyotes howl at the whole of it.