Ronnie Sirmans
Three Poems
Kind of Dying for a Cause
My friends left work early
so they could head to the park
to lie down dead. Lots of others
surrounded them, prone on mats,
blankets, towels, or even nothing
atop the ground, imitating slainness.
A protest of unencumbered silence
to speak for victims, against violence.
Sanguine, at my numbing desk,
I surf the web and today’s headlines
include new research on dragonflies.
The female of a certain species
has been observed to fake her death
to avoid males’ unwanted advances.
This clever creature drops to the ground
as her iridescent-winged would-be suitor
laments how beauty can die so suddenly.
I move on the web to images of the die-in,
and I look closely for my fallen friends.
Some people have placards or flimsy
cardboard atop their bodies, slick slogans
covering their faces from the sunshine.
Others’ eyes are closed as journalists
step delicately among the mass nongrave.
Some of the bodies are dressed in black,
as if even the dead can mourn, knowing
that tonight, tomorrow, and after that
will be unimagined reckonings, offering
no choice, no fireless phoenix rising up
from a pretend personal hell on the ground.
Illumination
In the not-quite-dark of a full moon and quietude
of a suburban subdivision, walking two small dogs
who seem amazed by my return home each night,
I review the day’s news and social interactions
and wonder again what is wrong with the world.
So then I think on how when I was growing up,
there were a dozen people who were walking
this world who also had set foot on the moon.
Unbending time has cut that number by two-thirds,
and I think that offers a clue to what’s happened
in this shrinking world with diminished people.
Because we’ve been lulled from lunar progress,
in the years ahead there will come a time
when no such astronauts will be among
the billions of us trapped by this gravity.
But for now I contemplate men who walked
238,900 miles from where I’m patiently
standing on the side of a twilighted street,
the little black Chihuahua mix pulling north
as the little white rat terrier mix pulls south,
my arms and thoughts like a compass needle.
I also must wonder why we stopped sharing
this miraculous travel before the inevitable:
a woman stepping foot 238,900 miles away,
a scientist or a pilot of color proclaiming
one small step for somebody and one giant
leap for humankind not to falter in our dreams.
The two dogs, yanking leashes like yin and yang,
aren’t troubled to discuss history or diversity;
they wish to explore distant lawns. I look up,
wishing to see our lunar modules left in that dust.
From here you’d think it was incandescent up there.
Do things there rust or is that an earthbound curse?
Even in darkness, the full moon can cast shadows.
America’s Top 10
10.
I am not taking the knee because it is too painful. Doesn’t matter which, my knee protests with popping noises like fizzled fireworks if I try to get into a position like a faltering faith of uncertain genuflection.
9.
My first girlfriend said I would get lost if I went down there because her stuff was like venturing into the ether. My last boyfriend didn’t want kids but wanted to get married, and I took too long to venture an opinion on either.
8.
Black is not the opposite of white; a cliché is not the opposite of truth. A poem is not a baton; a Taser is not a kite dangling a key waiting to be struck by lightning. Binary is not the opposite of them.
7.
Tattoos have crawled from older generations’ arms and backs and legs and chests to the new generation’s necks and faces. Tattoos don’t signal races.
6.
Love was tattooed atop the fingers on one hand of a one-night stand, hate on the other. I ignored him the next time I saw him. I thought it was a minor offense.
5.
You can’t spell America without i. For indigo or immigrant, you need two i’s. Insensitive or indicative gets i, i, i, like three votes. But our ayes and eyes don’t need I.
4.
You can’t spell United States without U. A cliché is not the opposite of truth. Truth also needs u.
3.
Countdowns don’t happen only once. We might count on too much. Ancient Romans counted down the top hits from X to I.
2.
Love and hate have neither u nor i. Tattoos have to be burned off if you change your mind on ink, and we learn people are not as malleable as we may think. Every tattoo is personal, and the scar left when it’s gone is personal. Keloids are personal. Homonyms are personal. Letters are personal. Poetry is personal.
1.
I
Ronnie Sirmans‘ poems have appeared in Tar River Poetry, The American Journal of Poetry, Sojourners, Jewish Currents, America, As It Ought to Be Magazine, Deep South Magazine, and elsewhere. An award-winning headline writer, Sirmans lives in metro Atlanta.
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