metaphor | Fred Aiken Writing

October 17, 2021

Kicking On

time is the girlfriend that keeps racking up one large bill after another

always telling me she’ll slow down, that this is the last Gucci whatever she will buy,

all the while I know she’s getting ready for another coke-fueled night of spending me dry,

curled over on the couch hoping that one day it will stop

while also being too afraid to leave myself,

hoping, against hope, against sanity, with some sort of masochistic delight,

that the torture continues into the night into the morning into the year into the decade,

until one day I wake up, completely spent, decrepit, in horrible credit card debt,

but still grateful that time keeps kicking me over and over, begging her not to stop

October 14, 2021

Anarchy Missed the Flight

anarchists fleeing from bombarded ships flooded

in the streets,

made momentous by continuous momentum stirring

through veins, collapsed cityscapes scrapped from being listed

by settlers sleuthing organic matter falling from histrionics

of volcanic heights, stopped in the middle of the street,

to the noise of half-thought-out sentences sprayed

and sanitized with Lysol wipes

quipped from the deleterious effects of deletantes led to dinner in

a feast meant for a king and

adorned by peasants creating their own credit card debt out of thin

air, high above the sea, grooves of the peninsula sharpening

out of the remnants of what’s left in the streets

as anarchists flee, flex, boil to the surface on segues trailing intrigue

catching fire from thoughtless arsonists atop buildings built by martyrs

from a slim, but slimming margin cut

from the bone, right to the plate,

delicious to eat

but nothing to pray

October 8, 2021

Hambre de Verano

moments spent hungry while dreaming

are torturous when you think about all the free food

you could have if you just lowered your standards and;

ate moldy crap that no one else wanted

tossed out in rubbish or garbage or flim-flam

depending on where you’re from,

not knowing where to go,

since everything around us will be consumed

one way or another, for one thing, person, place, or moment to shine

like an awkward ornament dangling from a rotten Christmas tree left

out in the sun to blanche

for the summer, in suntan lotion

with bits of sand stuck in its sap

as kids try to eat ice cream made from cruelty-free milk,

because in the food chain no one needs to suffer if we’re all getting fed