poets – Page 5 – Kevin Trent Boswell

Glow-Up

I never felt the need
To pretend
That everything was okay

It’s normal to hurt and bleed
When things end
And people go away

I never felt the need to be cruel
To act like it didn’t matter to me
As if I was unfazed, fine, even great

It takes a special kind of fool
To show off, hoping they’ll see,
And giving in to a petulant hate

Back in the Day

Back in the old days,
If a lady thought she fancied you,
She’d drop her handkerchief;
You were looking, and she knew

This signaled to a gentleman
“Sir, do come and flirt with me”
In returning it, his charm
(Or lack thereof) she could see

Supposedly, now a quick smile
Does what the hanky used to
But modern men know better,
There is no acceptable thing to do

One woman says, “Here is good,
“But never, ever, over there!”
But the next one will say the opposite;
So, men guess in despair

If you approach because she smiled,
She’ll say, “I was just being polite”
But suddenly, she’s uncomfortable,
And she’ll say, “That’s not right!”

If you cannot read her mind,
Then your head is made of rock
And unless you’re rich and famous,
You’ll be slandered on TikTok

But if you don’t take the risk,
Then she’ll feel like you rejected her
She’ll tell her friends you’re a coward
When you thought you respected her

A woman thinks she’s flirting
If she blushes, smiles, and fidgets
But if you want him to make a move,
Drop a hanky or your digits

weekend

“time to pretend that we’re so cool
“as if we’d earned it, and we deserve more
“time to act like a selfish fool
“lose track of the count, settle the score”

you can have all that; you guys go ahead
it’s a hard no; I’m not into it, pass
shallow people make me wish I was dead
I’d rather eat a bowl of broken glass

standard operating procedure

standard operating procedure
or the abbreviation S.O.P. for short

throw it out the fucking window,
as far as any attempt to navigate
the world, as it is, right now, today

nothing works the way it used to
and none of the old rules apply

reliability is no longer a feature
most people treat each other as sport

the only thing you can really know
is that for us, it’s probably too late
but there’s no one who can definitely say

it’s no longer just about what you do
it’s not only a matter of how hard you try

it’s easy to find a lovely creature
the attractive-on-the-outside sort

but when the inside parts begin to show
you might turn off or begin to hate
and lose your previous desire to play

if their nature is less-than-true
if they’re the type that’s prone to lie

you don’t need a guru or preacher
nor a bunker, a base, or a blanket fort

only a love to make your heart glow,
to change your mind about your fate
and honest, kind words to say

you need “do unto others, as to you”
and together, you can happily die

undefeated champion

From the book in the current by Kevin Trent Boswell, available on Amazon

waiting at the helm of a great warship
called Spectacle
is the captain

a brave man
become myth

he whose eyes
have seen men perish
in campaigns
not yet born
or even conceived

whose castle walls have not folded
and have not been compromised

whose war dogs bear teeth
that are, themselves,
the very latticework of hell,
the stalagmites in Plato’s cave

his minions know the spiced morsels
of victory
his fruit is purpose;
his seed,
vision

no perverse enigma
flails itself against him
defeat claws at his ankles
but it has no firm grasp
laughing, he shakes off
such ridiculous pests

with a gargantuan arm,
he wields a bastard sword
and lops off the heads of cowardice
impaling indecision
rendering the obtuse
asunder

nonchalantly cuts the throats ⠀
of his desires
with the spur of his boot
and serves them
to his children

this is our hero,
the protagonist who waltzes in,
commanding that fear bow down
and obey him

all the flies of apathy scatter
the vermin of status quo fascism
gnawing off their tails,
choking on the bribes they accepted

some keel over from fright
and others die straight out
from shame when they see
him coming

strutting on the pathway
made from the hides
of indolent fools
he comes
to conquer

in the current by Kevin Trent Boswell — Available on Amazon

nouveau design

light it up
let’s go ahead and do this
there’s nothing here
but the smell of gasoline

shatter the cup
of the empty kiss
there is only fear
and they’re all this mean

empty the coffers
and raid the till
don’t tend the fire
chase butterflies

laugh at the scoffers
go in for the kill
plot and conspire
for the everyone cries