Just as I was thinking I’d become
a gollum,
slinking over slick stones
in the dank dark of a cavern
deep beneath the rays
of youth’s naivety;
just as I was thinking I’ve been decked
in total shadow long enough
that even moonlight might
make red my skin or singe my eyes;
just as was I was thinking I was perched
mere microns from the crumbling verge
of void,
peering into reaches
so deep that even echoes
of righteous, idealistic shouts
from lungs unsullied by the tars of time
are drowned;
just as I was thinking that my
cynicism, finally,
had overtaken me,
infiltrated me, and burrowed down
into the marrow of my bones,
I see my cynicism
isn’t nearly cynical
enough.
***
Often, I recall
that newsman’s plea:
these people are not used to this,
their hair is blond, their eyes
are blue,
they look like me or you,
they do not hail,
from Planet Earth’s
seedy neighborhood
where such nasty things as these
are casual, quotidian occurrences—
like running out of butter,
or the occasional hiccup bout—
they need (deserve) our help.
***
So when I heard
about the seven
whose passports had
that special quality
of vouching for humanity,
whose vans had logos
printed plainly on the roofs
that looked like bullseyes to
the bloodshot eyes
that everywhere see bullseyes only,
my cynicism told me:
now that they who look like you
are numbered with dead,
surely there will be some backlash
that, evidently, browner deaths
do not deserve.
But like a devil on
the devil on my shoulder’s shoulder,
a Cynicism Squared—
a Cynicism Two-Point-O—
now rears its horned and ruddy head
and whispers through a sickly grin,
even now
they do not really care,
they’re only fretting that
their reservations at
Jaleo
may be in mortal jeopardy.
I’m left to wonder:
how high a stack of devils can
my weary shoulder hold?
J Kramer Hare is a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where he lives and writes. When not reading or writing he enjoys rock climbing and listening to jazz. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Jerry Jazz Musician, Untenured, Quibble Lit, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Clackamas Literary Review, the Oakland Review, and elsewhere. He can be found at kramerpoetry.com.