Small Time
by Chuck Rybak
Come morning you play in the ocean with a child
speaking in waves through the waves
the undertow pulls on the limbs of generations
asks you to come out further closer to the message
The present collapses under the weight
of nothing our species wilts
beneath the specter of our conclusion we order
from Amazon just to have something to look forward to
We must be the shade for the trees
build our ribs into bird nests and lairs
concentrate on slowing ourselves into ice
there’s no time like the past
The world shrinking so fast small lifetime
with no connection to a star outside chronology
our own yards reveal new trees
unnoticed like the snow that never came
Perhaps an estuary will grant you permission to look closely
with only your skin at life unrivaled
living equations of origin and future
each number in its place and without voice
The stump in the yard is still wet
roots sending water to a ringed altar
the accumulated years
still spelling out what we cannot read
Invasive
She says almost nothing on this far island
is native nearly every species invasive
this you have to work at
You have to bring the body
as I have across the ocean’s horizon
Nothing can just blow here on the wind
Nothing came to aid those already at home the indigenous
The exotic will come inexorable the exotic will leave
What was home is a museum
What was home is thirty species of palm
on a dead poet’s property seeded from his dead wife’s shed
Maybe here off the main road in a town
that sounds like a poem Haiku, Hawaii
is where native lives
I believe my knowledge makes me welcome here
different from the tourists
who come from home
invasive species in print shirts
who see everything as the same kind of pretty
Clichés to End the Lies
A chip off the old lie.
Kill two birds with one lie.
This little liar went to market,
This little liar stayed home.
I took the lie less traveled by,
and that has made all the difference.
The third time is a lie.
It’s just a hop, skip, and a lie.
This little liar had roast beef,
This little liar had none.
Good things come to those who lie.
The art of lying isn’t hard to master.
The early bird catches the lie.
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the lies
Like a patient etherized upon a table.
And this little liar went wee wee wee all the way home.
BIO
Chuck Rybak lives in Wisconsin and is a Professor of English, Writing, and Humanities at the University of Wisconsin—Green Bay, where he coordinates their prison education initiative. He is the author of two chapbooks and two full-length collections of poetry. Chuck also writes on Substack as The Declining Academic.
