Disappointed Customer

by Bruce McRae

Dear Whomever, not that we care that much,
but we seem to have misplaced your recent order.
Somehow the forms were sent to deepest Africa,
your details now in the hands of the Russian mob.
However, for an extra fee we will provide poor service.

Often what one desires one doesn’t receive.
Molly in reception was abandoned by her parents
and God, for example, so I wouldn’t complain,
not if you know what’s good for you.
And we know what’s good for you.

In Another World

A headless chicken…
On a raft…
In an ocean of methane…
On another world…
In an alternate timeline…

But wait, there’s more,
says the author
while patting down
his unruly cowlick.
Creating his own problems.
Making trouble for himself.
Starting something
he couldn’t finish.

It’s A Job

The one who drives hogs screaming
to the slaughterhouse, whistling a happy tune,
smoking a cigarette he’d term well deserved,
twiddling dials on an old truck’s radio,
ogling the gals on this sunny summer morning.
Fulfilling his role, if not his destiny.
Carrying on in a world as sweet as it is bitter.

*

Our friendly neighborhood gravedigger.
The quiet sort, who keeps to himself
and bides his counsel, off to work
each morning without a care in the world,
his cat left watching in the window.
He who deports himself as if one
maintaining a well-kept confidence.
A man to withhold Earth’s secrets.

*

I found work as a village idiot.
I sit on a fence and grin all day.
I get to shout at the incomprehensible
something-or-other which is all around us,
gesticulating wildly, like a drunken man
waving at flies that aren’t actually there.
The pay is poor, but I don’t mind;
in my line of work there are few expectations.
I just chew on a straw. Come rain or shine.
I just spit in the dirt. Come hell or high water.

*

The graveyard shift,
a killer of women and children,
of those who have two choices,
little or none, stars faltering,
the moon fallen down,
workers’ heads bowed
in determined reverence,
the righteous tucked into bed,
their dreams unhindered
by metal on bone.
By the issues that cause
much suffering.

BIO

Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician currently residing on Salt Spring Island BC, is a Pushcart nominee with over a thousand poems published internationally in magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. His books are ‘The So-Called Sonnets’ (Silenced Press), ‘An Unbecoming Fit Of Frenzy’ (Cawing Crow Press) and ‘Like As If” (Pskis Porch), all available via Amazon.