Poems from other
collections by Ron Offen

God's Haircut

Instead of Gifts

Poet As Bad Guy

Off Target

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For Donn on the Occasion of His Final Escape

Oh everyone agrees you're better off this way.
Your caged Quixote heart is finally free.
I don't know what I feel, I don't know what to say.

Those years of fumbling at the latch...delay
became a bore, your angst a parody.
Now everyone agrees you're better off this way.

Of course you bungled to the end, and two weeks lay
with half your windmill brain, flailing helplessly.
I don't know what I feel, I don't know what to say.

How could we help you? Each new love, new vista, way
of life, posed terrors only you could see.
So everyone agrees you're better off this way.

And yet, amidst the nightmares of our rational day,
was madness pledge of your integrity?
I don't know what I feel, I don't know what to say.

Who now shall rescue us from our smug sanity?
I cannot think this sodden, swollen day in May.
Though everyone agrees we're better off this way,
I don't know what I feel, I don't know what to say

--Ron Offen
Copyright © 1996 by Ron Offen

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