The Thinker’s Last Thought

One day the world decided

they no longer are in need

of philosophers and poets,

those who defined the times

long after their demise

and gave birth to generations

of thinkers who are now

obsolete like stone scarecrows

chiseled in the form of forgotten

gods and fallen angels

despite their words and ideas

being occasionally referenced

by self-professed professors

to sound smarter than those

who they engage in conversation,

as the world indulges on dancing

sapiens recommended by their phones,

heads that once stared down

at the folded pages of books

with worn vertabrae and paper

used for fascist bonfires.

.

Did Nietzche ever lie awake

in bed and think the world

would have gotten so rotten

that they would decide that

his services were no longer

needed?

The first instance of skin to skin contact in years

Sometimes we just need a touch,

most will run far from where you are

even when you approach with arms

in the air, attempting to hug them

as the candied man in a van or diseased

beast that they assume you are,

and will scream about stranger danger

or unwanted touches in a scene to

escape faster if they think you are only

in need of a moment of human contact,

a single handshake, knocking knuckles,

the highest of fives, an arm clenched hug,

so you disguise your need for feeling with

a single bump into them and an exchange

of apologies, or a swift brush that

the distracted stranger doesn’t notice.

SHUT UP AND WRITE

One thousand chimpanzees,

chain-smoking cartons

of extra tar cigarettes,

seated on a wooden stool

chained to rows of writing desks

each with a manual typewriter,

bundles of flammable paper

and bottles of inhalable white-out,

couldn’t write everything that

artificially intelligent machines

without arthritic fingers or

a wasting mind could generate

without a keyboard

and a few keywords.

When All the King’s Men Never Stand Again

The men who use the world

as a chess board,

the only move to not lose

at the game of life

is to flip the board over

rather than quit or submit.

The Closed Door

A man sits in an empty room.

There are no windows, and only one door.

Closed.

He doesn’t move.

He doesn’t search for an entrance.

He doesn’t search for an exit.  

He doesn’t know whether it is locked or not,

or if he is trapped behind walls of immuration,

just because he doesn’t know whether he should

push

or

pull.