Which way should we go?
Should we combine or choose?
Are we wheat or chaff, neither, nor,
does that equation hold anymore?
Things get complicated, it's hard
to decide so the language of lawyers
presides just like the uncertainty
of etc. Better to cover all the bases,
numbers, colors, whatever. Who
cares? Around-and-about confusion
slashes our minds. In simpler times
it was Ten Commandments
or the Bill of Rights, do unto
others and us to them, here
and there. Geography went from shore
to shore even though Cristo
and Marco changed that long ago./ So
many voices, not sure which
is mine or yours or theirs except
they all say the same thing even
though they don't sound alike,
all babble and confusion trending
toward anarchy, the orderly odd
islands of exception, luddite holdouts
against the tide of devolution
and/or the palette of a masterpiece.
--
Eric Chiles is author of "What Was and Will Be" (Resource Publications, 2024, and available on Amazon) and the chapbook "Caught in Between" (Desert Willow Press, 2019). Besides Disturb the Universe, his poetry has appeared in Allegro, Big Windows Review, Canary, Rattle, San Pedro River Review, and elsewhere. Grandfather to a dozen grandsons, he wishes he had a granddaughter.