Renegades:

The town ran out of graveyard. So they buried the dead in the air. But the night winds were so strong they blew all but the heaviest corpses away into the desert. So they buried the dead in their dreams. But this made sleeping unpleasant. So they ignored the dead. But they kept tripping over them during errands and chores. So they outlawed dying. But the town was full of rule breakers. So they lived with the dead. But this required shutting one’s eyes to see. So they forgot the dead.

A Treatise on Human Nature:

The only women with bulletproof smiles

are those who know

there are no bulletproof smiles.

All men with bulletproof smiles

have been shot dead.

Death discharges all debts

male, female, or other

but most the population

is alive.

Half the world knows

blonds are responsible

for most the world’s woes.

The other half

should meet more blonds.

The human heart

is a wine cork caught

in a kitchen sink’s eddy—

wild, undrownable,

governed by forces

not its own.

We cannot think.

So don’t. 

Brooks Lindberg lives in the Pacific Northwest. His poems and antipoems appear in various publications. Links to his work can be found at brookslindberg.com.