Poems
by Richard
LeDue
Our Rightful Place
The wind is louder than Brahms tonight
and that seems to whisper something to me
about our rightful place in this world:
the way brilliance becomes grey haired,
giving way to folded hands and clothes
someone else decided made you
look a little less dead,
leaving me with concertos, symphonies,
requiems that comfort me with sounds
trying their damnedest
to live longer than others.
Blacking Out With Taylor Swift
I think people liked me more
when I used to drink more
because the whisky in my glass
preserved my slurred silence
like I was a dead prehistoric fly
trapped in amber,
but now I prefer Bach to blacking out,
and how all these deceased composers
wrote a soundtrack for me
before I was even born
by proving my Sunday mornings
could thunder with something else
other than a hangover.
Wiser Than Me
They say Wagner lived
in his later years
off money from the king
of Bavaria, and I know most
would confirm this
with an internet search,
but I’m okay to blindly believe
what I read
on the insert of the CD
I bought at a thrift store,
before stopping
at the liquor store again.
