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Like Fate
It was bound to happen—
They left us all like this,
Gutted shells of our former selves
Shades of long-forgotten tales
The slow-down,
The emptiness,
Weeds growing up through
The cracks of our teeth
They called it lockdown
Be honest and call it:
Unconstitutional
Hollow evil
Globalism gnashing
But there are structures they can’t kill
A building with good bones
Where flowers can blossom
Where light can shine through
The Shades of April
Generally plants that have been kept in pots
Have roots that take that shape
Move, transplant, repeat
Plants belong out there in the garden,
The greatest depth being necessary in the lightest soil
The snows came late this year
The trees have bloomed twice
Planting against a post
Can be useful when the winds crash
Stones can root the soil to the ground
And evergreens are shielded from the effects of the weather—
Deep roots, like Tolkien said.
With an Iron Grip
There are ideas so powerful
That culture clings to them
With an iron grip—
That of
Heroes, monsters, cheating death,
Transcending the spirit of the Age
And such
A thousand tales
Keep retelling themselves
Into infinity
A Modern Prayer
May you separate yourself from social media
And find solace in the mundane world of the senses
May you see through the lies and
Manipulations of the media,
Never letting the shadow powers
Grab hold of your heart—
Keeping free of their emotional control grid
And may you use the digital age
Like a shovel
Never letting it bury you,
And be in heaven an hour
Before the devil knows you’re dead
The Slap
An actor slaps an actor on the stage
Thousands of children watching at home
Internalize
Is this how jokes are reacted to?
But I thought, “sticks and stones?”
Physical violence was never tolerated
In response to words, before
But the world is watching
To see how the gamekeepers have
Changed the rules
In the spirit of evolution.
Leslie D. Soule is a fantasy and sci-fi author from Sacramento, California. She has an M.A. in English and is currently working on the final book of her fantasy series, The Fallenwood Chronicles. Leslie is also the author of My Mentor, Death and Falling Through the World, available from Terror House Press.