Something is out there, and we’re all just a bit
Terrified of what’s going to happen next, but
What in the heck can we do about something
That we can’t even see when it’s coming about
To slash and twist us about so turning us into
Just about everything we’ve never ever wanted
To be, or even not be, and it’s just awful the way
Some of us know that it’s pretty hard to stop
What we don’t want, or grab at what we do
By crying out loud, or even whispering, but
Some suggest we find all our sleeping masks
And look around in the kitchen for kitchen knives
And run outside in the dark which is darker
Than we’ve ever known, but now we’re slashing
And stabbing and hoping one of those we
Think we’re gutting will be what’s started us
All into the panic we’re in, even on such a
Cold night in the smack dab middle of March
And we don’t want to make too much of it
But we do go out in the morning to see if any
Can find any blood splatters, anything that
Might let us know we’ve once again shaken
The cry baby who keeps us all up late at night,
Twittering and tweeting scaring the whatever
Out of us, but now we can rest a bit until the
Next blowhard makes a mess of something
Out there, which is really here, where we are.
Poems of DeWitt Clinton have appeared recently in Santa Fe Literary Review, Ekphrastic Review, Diaphanous Press, Meta/Phor(e)Play, and The Arabesques Review. A new book collection of poems On a Lake by a Moon: Fishing with the Chinese Masters will be published in 2018 by Is A Rose Press, (Jerusalem) and a second book collection At the End of the War will be published by Kelsay Books (Hemet, Calif.) in the fall of 2018. He lives in Shorewood, Wisconsin.