it does not require
very much square footage
to store melancholy
it fits neatly
inside of an eye
discouragement will
fit perfectly
in the bottom
of one shoe,
ennui in the other,
and you’ll still have
wiggle room
for your toes,
as you walk around
no place special,
all by yourself
loneliness doesn’t
take up much space
it fits easily
into a single
empty hand
©2024 Kevin Trent Boswell
Not the brightest of men,
I have walked into walls,
Chasing pleasant illusions,
Elusive pleasures
But even I,
Tiny bean brain that I may be,
Have enough sense
To stand back from the flames,
To stay clear of fires that
Rage beyond my control
Red, blustery, passionate,
These rueful waves of the sun
Crackle against the marbled rings
Of Kronos’ cold steel slave rings
The hard master yields nothing easily
I can summon enough sense
To feed myself when my bones
Become brittle with hunger
But I cannot make a meal
Out of the dust and dry reeds
Of another’s feverish pangs
There is no sustenance in another’s
Temporary fits of dissatisfied craving,
The ghoulish haunting caused by
Dwelling in the discontent of
A desiccated shell, which they are
Reluctant to abandon
When war swings its broadsword
At the throat of its enemy with full vigor
And the enemy,
Equally skilled in the art of slaughter,
Parries with a great sword
In just the knick of time,
At a perfect right angle,
There will inevitably come
A clanging sound most awful
Sparks will pour off steel weaponry
Sweat and cruel words will fly,
And the thirst of demons is slaked
With someone’s blood
The only question is, “Who’s blood?”
The answer is always the name of
Someone stupid enough
To stand too close to the fray
Such a someone does not
Keep their name very long
The surgical procedures
Of iron, hatred, and discontent
Removes the name like a tumor,
Placing it in a small wooden box and
Burying it in the yard, like a dead bird,
A former family pet who
Gave up the ghost
Except, that the bird was well-loved, and
Grieved for after its passing
The name of the fool who stands
Between plumes of martial fire
And the incontinence of the unhappy
Is quite unceremoniously
Peeled from the imbecile’s face and
Dropped in a shallow grave
With all the careful consideration
A person observes when tossing
A banana peel into the garbage
A miserly liver of life,
Who cherishes comfort above all else,
Will angrily slit the throat
Of one who offers them a cup of wine,
When the skinflint is busy
Swearing to the deliciousness
Of the sand in their parched throat
A plate of fresh fruit and venison
Is smacked hastily from the hand,
When offered to the prisoner
Who enthusiastically requests
A second helping of gravel and worms
No, it is far wiser to step back
Stay clear of one who is firmly committed
To the cause of consistency,
Merely for convenience’s sake
Let the dice, lightning bolts, and swords
Fall where they may;
So long as it is not upon your neck
©2024 Kevin Trent Boswell
Don’t worry, you will love no part of it;
It’s certain to please, someone, somewhere
Possibly and definitely, maybe
No one who isn’t everyone, but is
Enter the theater of the absurd
And words… did I mention…
There is words; there are many word
A poem, a bit of a slight,
A sleight of hand, poetic
Stream-of-consciousness to commence
Leaning into the background
A handy little bit of conscience, handed
Down onto the foreground and landed
And not the slightest bit of it
Made any sense,
Not one single mode or section
Reason completely escaping detection
And hence,
Thoroughly not the throughout…
It’s good
And it’s okay if you realize that it isn’t
Okay to be good at detecting
That it is, but only when you know
That it might be
Peek behind the floor
There’s nothing under the door
And someone is beside the rug,
Shrugging at the sound of the wall
And laughing at all the empty windows
We might have just enough time
To do everything
With the rest of the nothing
No one needs an excuse to be a poem
A poem is an utterly meaningless,
Ridiculous thing,
And everyone has
Every bit as much right
To be one
As I do
©2024 Kevin Trent Boswell
weighted dice spilling from broken jaws
tainted allegories and
flawless renderings of the invisible
dry beans pour out of sacks
onto tables of diamond and ivory
an abacus of emeralds,
strung on strands of horsehair
a tiny pewter coin sits
atop a scale of solid silver
resting on a column of solid gold
pristine smudges of chocolate
on acrylic peanut butter tapestries
buckets full of comets kicked over
and showers of sparks
falling on the floor
it’s enough to fill
the silos of the universe
top to bottom
but is it enough?
each individual grain of sand
grates against another;
all are dutifully counted
the hourglass is emptied
of all its inexorable empires
excuses are forged from breath,
and hammered into the sacred elixir
of nothingness
there is no motion
in this river’s torrent
the asphalt streets stole it all,
sold it to capricious eels
who swim in desperate candlelight
germinating helixes
bristling thorn vines
funneling promising poisons
into the infant mouths
of ageless behemoths
who rule small places
culmination is the beginning
of the termination of endings
and the siphoning off
of all the intermittent middle bits,
the ones that,
as an afterthought,
we tacked onto the ends
in carefully coordinated haste
the endeavor,
doomed from the outset
thank goodness
we never embarked upon the journey
and that we saw it through
all the way to the end
we can scarcely contain ourselves
from raving about
what raucous ecstatic bliss
it was, from the pistol start
to the razored end
steal the serpent’s fangs
replace its venom
with politesse
and useless smalltalk
watch giddily
as it pathetically
gnaws and gums
unproductively at its prey
we dare not speak
of our elusive mysteries,
not to the droll, sour, uninitiated brood,
lest they discover our secret formula
of beginning in the middle
and ending at the front part
of the second third half
of each hind quarter,
but only on Thursdays,
except on leap years of an august May
the excitement would surely
be too much for their frail constitutions,
and over dead, they would drop down,
into new incarnations
of ceaseless wonder
and when, if so,
would any of it
ever cease?
take care,
that none of this ever occurs,
except for those precious few times
that it unavoidably does not
dial back
the wilting clock
and try not to
try again
©2024 Kevin Trent Boswell
To my friends
Who strive to be
Better than you were
Yesterday
I want you to know that
I see you
And I appreciate you
At times, I have been wrong;
Many, many, many times,
I have been
Wrong
On a few occasions, I have been the bad guy
Out of fear, I did things I wasn’t proud of;
Things I’m deeply ashamed of,
Things I hold myself accountable for,
So I don’t do them again
Sometimes, out of frustration,
I was lazy, apathetic, etc.
But I haven’t allowed myself to stay stuck,
Mired in those states indefinitely
I have not been a troll,
Picking fights for the sake of fighting
I ask myself, “Which part of my beliefs
“Are based on shoddy thinking?”
I ask myself, “In what ways have I been
“Less than kind, greedy, or negative?”
And many of you
Have been the inspirations
For my wanting to be
Better than I was
Even when I failed,
Your examples still served
As valuable anchor points
For me to get up and
Try again
I have kept a mental list
Of my friends and acquaintances
Who strive to be
Simultaneously
Excellent and kind
I want you to know that
I see you
And I appreciate you
I know you do your best
To hear both sides
Of important discussions
I know you read books and articles
I know you seek information that is
Outside of your usual echo chambers
To help you be well-informed and
As unbiased as possible
I know you become discouraged,
The same way I do,
When you see the stupid things
That people post, say, and defend
Things so easy to disprove
It’s ridiculous,
And yet, they stick to their beliefs
Like glue
I know you, too,
Throw up in your mouth a little
When people display
An unshakeable belief of,
“My feelings are just as valid as your facts.”
Feelings are a thing
They have many of,
And most of them are
Completely out of proportion
With the reality of the various situations
And facts are things that
They only have a scant few of
I know that many of you have
A vast education under your belts
Some of you are writers or educators
Some of you are scientists or musicians
Some of you are entrepreneurs
Some of you are esotericists
Or mathematicians
Or you are in mental health
Or you work in any of
Dozens of other areas that all require
Brains, determination, and a
Delicate balance of empathy and
Fearlessness
Whatever you do, I take note of how
You have an excellent understanding
Regarding your particular fields of study
Some of you have a Bachelor’s degree;
Others have a Master’s or Doctorate;
Some only have an Associate’s;
Some of you barely finished high school,
Or you got a GED,
Or you dropped out
But even those who dropped out
Have more of a
School of Hard Knocks education
Than some who have Master’s degrees
What you all have in common is that
You don’t hide behind
Your credentials
You mention them only when
It’s essential to do so
You didn’t stop learning
At no point did you decide that
You had “arrived,” or that you
Could no longer learn something
From someone half your age
At no time did you conclude that you are
Wiser, more intelligent, or more righteous
Than anyone else
Because
You aren’t competing
With anyone else;
Only with yourself
I see that quality in you
And I humbly bow
To that aspect
Of your nature
I see most people barking at each other
From places of fear, bitter hatred,
Ignorance that refuses to be corrected,
And from places of privilege;
People who cannot or will not
Show compassion for those
Who did not have the same advantages
And then, I see YOU
And the difference between
You and them is like
Night and day
You quietly go about your lives
Being friendly, but
Standing up for yourselves
And for others
More importantly,
You do it without any pretentiousness,
No “holier than thou” attitude
And I gotta say,
You fuckin’ rock.
I see you apologize
When you were rude,
Without habitually
Repeating the offense
I see you admitting when
You didn’t know something,
And graciously thanking someone for
Politely educating you about it
I also quietly assign you cool points
When some vulgar troll tries to
Rudely school you
Or assassinate your character
And you smack them down,
Put them in their place,
Without stooping
To their level
Some of you do this by
Sticking to the facts,
Some of you just block them,
And some of you utilize your
Wicked, rapier wit to
Eviscerate them
And I smile
And yes, there are many things that
I’m incorrect about,
And many of you are
Much more knowledgeable
In these areas than I am
And there are a few things
That I know more about
Than you do
But we
Give each other
Respect
Because
We both know in our hearts that
Each of us
Is sincerely trying
Much harder to
BE RIGHT
Than to merely
Appear right
I appreciate the times when you
Are patient with my stupidities,
Of which I have many
I appreciate the times
When you could have
Decimated me in an argument
Because I didn’t know
What the hell I was talking about
But you didn’t ridicule me,
You just pulled me aside and
Politely shared some
Of your wisdom with me
I see the “average” people
Who are genuinely well below
What average used to be
And they want to be rewarded
For their mediocrity
Then, I see YOU
Sharing your excellence,
Your experience, your humor,
Your charm, your skill, and your kindness
And you ask nothing
In return
I see you
And you
Keep me
Going
©2024 Kevin Trent Boswell
he was speaking vodka,
a language that I understood
all-too-well
as I sat on the edge of his bed,
I handed him the joint
that I had just finished
carefully rolling
he lit it, and taking a small toke,
became suddenly
and uncharacteristically
serious
“You do know that I’m not life, right?”
it must have been obvious
that I had no clue
how to answer that,
so he continued,
“When I was just a little boy,
“your grandpa (and mine) told me,
“he said,
‘Son, you’ll pull time before you hit twenty.’
“At nineteen, I did six months.”
before he could say another word,
drunk people spilled into the room
and the party took over
it was as if the writer
of this dark comedy of errors
had carefully placed
the interruption into the script
for dramatic effect
years later,
I stood in the yard
with my father
one morning
we burned a mattress
in the yard
a mattress with
a peculiar red stain
on the top end of it,
right about where a man
would lay his head down
to sleep
smoke climbed high,
snaking its way through
the bare tree branches,
coating the limbs,
blackening the sun,
giving twisted new meaning
to the wind
with each searing crackle,
each hot little iron
that launched out of the flames,
the notion was solidified
that you would never be
with us again
the red stain
is forever removed,
taken off and away
from the bad blend of cotton
and synthetic fiber
its ugly lack of aesthetic,
permanently removed
from the eye
we have, instead,
embroidered you
into our hearts,
in gold-letter
on satin
a little redirection,
a simple trick
of the firelight
and the mind
a touch of
pre-approved manipulation,
vocabulary and memory,
now twisted
to suit ourselves
with semblances
of sanity
and you, all dressed up,
looking dapper
in a new suit
something to
bring you over
the threshold
in style
we have gathered
many flowers
you were one of them
now, on this rainy Saturday,
we gather more,
but none of them are as rare
or as interesting as you
still, we do so wish
that you were not so
still
now, we are all
so much more careful
with our words
we never had to
monitor our tongues before
we always counted on you
to say something
deliciously profane,
hysterical, sublime
you said things far more terrible
than we could ever manage
(or dare) to bring forth
from our fearful mouths
you said it all for us,
you, being our favorite devil,
you spared no words,
knowing full well that your time
was short
now, everything is
serious and sullen
ash settles on us,
stealing the still-warm
seat of smiles
we do our best
to preserve the integrity
of your memory
with all our words,
so clumsily polite and wrong
yours were so horribly accurate
your list of faults could fill volumes
all of these,
now consumed by fire
and forgetfulness
we will not miss them
we are, in fact, glad
to be free of these;
free from the weight
of your awful acuity
your spiteful condemnation
of this earth was always felt
hot upon our necks
even your parting words of
“Fuck this world!”
were a vicious pronouncement
of a pox on all our houses
that seething sentiment,
ever-present,
laced into the mix
of the cocktail that was you;
virtually indistinguishable
from the indiscriminate joy
of your cosmic jester voice
pouring out over our
wanting brains
we will not miss the
chaos of your actions,
or your allegiance to
an autocratic indifference
we only miss
everything else
but beneath all of the
intolerable heavy,
knowing of nothing else to do…
we dutifully
lift our eyes
to the coming days
where you
are not
©2024 Kevin Trent Boswell
Kevin Trent Boswell 