The April Third Selected Poet is Christopher Hivner

Please feel free to email Christopher at: hailragnar@verizon.net

SIGNED AND SEALED

Ring around the rosie
the bodies
are piled at my door
but I didn’t
create
the sickness,
I am only the deliverer.
Pocketful of posies
a flower
for the dead
to mask the smell
of rot.
Ashe, ashes
the trenchant truth
alight in the pyre
of burning dead,
spirited away
in a spire of smoke.
We all fall down
because you
are all to blame.
The plague came
by your invitation,
through your supplication,
empty your pockets
to pay me
my due.

THE EARTH

The Earth rotates
around the Sun
at 67,000 mph,
yet I get a ticket
for doing 35 in a 25.

The Earth tilts
23.5 degrees on its axis,
but if I walked
leaning backwards,
people would think
I was crazy.

How does the Earth
get away with it?
Who does the Earth
think it is?

In our solar system,
the Earth is smaller
than 50% of its
fellow planets,
yet it is the only one
to sustain life.
Allegedly.

The Earth has managed to capture
only one moon.
Jupiter has an
army of 63,
yet our moon is the only one
that man has visited.
Allegedly.

What kind of dirt
does the Earth have
on the rest of the planets
to be treated
with such respect?

Medieval man
believed that the Sun
and stars
revolved around the Earth
in a geocentric dance
of fealty.
When Copernicus and Galileo
testified on behalf
of the Sun,
they were branded heretics.
Again we see
that the blue planet
has powerful friends.

Pluto sailed on the edge
of the solar system
for billions of years,
representing the fringe
with pride,
until some scientists,
from Earth,
decided he wasn’t big enough
to be a planet anymore.
The Earth is
the bully on the playground.

The evidence is conclusive
and incontrovertible.
Tread lightly in your dealings
with the blue planet
or you’ll end up like Pluto,
sleeping with the fishes.

DIY

Too many times
the screams of the dying
have interrupted my supper.
Too often
their moans
wake me from a deep sleep.
Countless dates
have been ruined
by their begging for help.
I dug the pit
and installed the spinning knives
for a reason
and it wasn’t for my victims
to survive for days and interrupt my daily life.
DIY death traps were a bad idea,
always call a professional.

Christopher Hivner writes from a small town in Pennsylvania surrounded by books and the echoes of music. He is neither famous nor infamous. He has recently been published in the anthologies Miseria Chorale, Strange Fucking Stories and Axes of Evil. A collection of short stories, The Spaces Between Your Screams was published by eTreasures Publishing.