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Two Poems  

Richard Weaver

A Senseless Man is beating a dead horse

with a whip made from horse flies and raisins.
Each crack, each pop surrenders into silence.
The dead horse remains stubborn, more so
than even a dead mule. His sorry, bony carcass
annoys the sun, just as it does the whip
and the whip’s handler. The flies are none too
happy either. Still, the dead horse refuses to rise,
to budge, to shift his shiftlessness, or turn
tail and twitch, to blink an eye open, or flare
a nostril. The dead horse’s death smile remains,
more grin than grimace. Even the maggots
despair. Futility has pulled a hamstring, had a sport’s
hernia, and called a lawyer comfortable in a hazmat suit
suit. It appears there’s nothing to be done. Napalm
and a flame-thrower will prove futile in the future.
As will a mountain of quicklime and a lake
of carbolic acid. Even flesh-eating bacteria
will be turned away hungry. There is no beating
a dead horse at its own game. No winners.
Only bruised and glowering losers.



A delirious hedgehog, one day, delivers

an unexpected sermon to an undiscovered
trove of truffles, who, all ears, listen
with newfound discrimination to the world
that lies above them. As a group they agree,
no memory they share has prepared them
for such an infusion of knowledge; no comfort
there. Whither to look? Whither to grow?
Beneath they gather, pulsing with fever
beside each other. The smell of pig not present
a separate joy. The hedgehog’s words ringing
true. They feel the sun rising and know
their future: their fate is not theirs to decide.