Sobriety; A Fear Of Death Is Louder Than Xbox by Richard LeDue

Sobriety

When the last whisky bottle

wakes up empty,

filled up with silence,

I'm left with a feeling

that isn't withdrawal or craving,

but is like a music lover

hearing a once great genius

(metaphorically of course)

conducting delusional amateurs

(figuratively of course)

as they play a symphony

composed of all the discord

and dissonance people down

daily, believing in their own tone deaf

songs of unhappy voices

more than any harmony.

A Fear of Death is Louder Than Xbox

Before I was seduced by poetry again

like a rainy knock from an old lover who shows up

naked and wet under a trench coat

I used to let my bloodshot eyes make love

to a forty inch screen and video games

that drowned out all the metaphors

I used to listen to Jim Reeves Christmas music

his voice a friendly kiss meaning nothing

except a comfortable self-soothing lie

how the snow wasn't a herald of old age

or at least it seemed that way in my late twenties

until the poems started to resurface

maybe more like worms

who never learned how to swim

than an old lover

                            so lost

they'll never see themselves as a wrong turn

some stranger won't notice in a graveyard

long after this has gone unread