Dead friends, abused children, inept therapists. . . One more depressing stanza and I'll call the cops! Poetry police will confiscate your pens and throw you in the slammer. Sleep it off until spring stirs a desire for joy, Until your pen can sing more than blues, Until jazz buds in your journal. I'm going to tell you a secret. . . life is more than pain. Are you hearing me? LIFE IS MORE THAN PAIN! Can you watch the finchsong melt winter's seven feet of white wonder, Or are you obsessed with doomsday groundhog prophecy? Whiny late winter lamentations only anger the snow gods. You must shovel them your oblation, They are not appeased by school closings. They demand snow-sculptures, sled-riding and snowball fights. No, you pine for hundred-in-the-shade, layer-peeling ray-catching. Watching the skin of your past blister, I scream, "The needle's stuck. . . the needle's STUCK. . . THE NEEDLE. . ." Pain is the opiate in the poppies Dropping you in the snow outside the Emerald City. Wanting no place like home, You dropped your house on the munchkins, Told Glinda where to put the ruby slippers, And told Toto to bite the Wizard! Leave your black-and-white Oz, come back to this colorful Kansas. Here the trees playfully throw snowballs. Check it out, there's a party in the present. Neighbors down a golden brew as eastbound and westbound shovels meet. After ten billion flakes, they still believe no two are alike. You know, you could be the one to find the twins, But only as a believer's gift, not a skeptics prize. One more secret, A roll in the hay is the reward For NOT finding the needle in the stack.

Copyright � 1993 Ian Lynch. All rights reserved