Poetry | Fred Aiken Writing

i looked over to my wife during dinner

and realized i didn’t have anything meaningful to say

and feared that she might not love me anymore,

though i would probably never ask her that outright,

in fear that she might lie

so instead i tell her that a flock of flamingoes is called a flamboyance,

which she didn’t believe,

so i pulled up wikipedia and she saw that i was right,

even seeming a little impressed,

and i think i saved my marriage with that fact, for just one more night

verifiable verses in vertigo

punctuating the melodies made poignant

through a journey, alone in abandoned suburban mountains

used for storage

that still doesn’t seem to have enough room for all

that crap we bought at garage sales

when we were in our twenties

and still couldn’t afford crap from ikea

wasting time is one of the most valuable things

you can do to rebel,

so sometimes that just means i’ll spend three hours

eating one thing of red jell-o,

because i don’t know how else to express my dissatisfaction

Fred Aiken Writing