I don’t want to hug the floor
any more than I have to,
have been doing for a decade or so.
Good intentions arrive by winter wind
to end up in the slag heap they deserve.
Gazes swerve abruptly
to some other happening beyond the pale,
and what ails us now gives way
to a different sort of cliche.
We used to take each day in stride, right?
Or are my lenses too pink and cloudy
to see things as they truly are?
I’ve never mulled any of it over
like I should have with that cold,
hard tenderness one finds so often
in poets and in clouds. For this,
I’m sure I must be penalized,
abandoned to the disorderly whims
of the holiday crowds that are just now
taking shape in the barely visible margins.
-r. miller
*Insert Propaganda Here* 