Three Poems by John F. Keane

 

The Haze of a Sweet Afternoon

Slow moments clad in flame dance between

dormant memories.  Coverts of yearning

stroll sun-slashed afternoon alleyways like

bechoning streetwalkers murmuring with

honey-slick voices.  This is the time, this

is the time to make eternal experience

they say, in the haze of a sweet afternoon

too perfect to endure, and never to return

slow moments clad in flame dance between

dormant memories.  The blazing instant 

lost, the brimming goblet spilt, the afternoon

that might have been discarded in the trash.

Incel in the Rain

outside rain pelts from grey

I ask my Stacylite friend if she

will share her umbrella with

me to the station she agrees

but anxiously checks if people

are mistaking us for a couple

she says the rain has slowed

she must hurry home fast

because Chad is waiting

she cannot endure walking

beside an incel subhuman

with people looking at us

I reach the station soaked

forlorn to the freezing skin

for the homebound train.

The Consolations of Philosophy

Always strive to make the maxim of

your action a universal law because

if you don't then everything we admire

will come to an ignominious and futile

end like a former rock star in a nursing

home, leaving nothing whatsoever of

interest to anyone as the earth spins

through the void towards eternity.

If no one bothered to have any kids

(which is a dirty job though some poor

bastard has to do it) then civilization

and all the achievements of our species

would crumble to dust and be forgotten

leaving vultures and grizzlies crapping

all over the White House floor and

bats roosting in the Bodleian library.

If no one ever bothered to go to work

(even if almost everyone hates their job

except famous athletes and performers

or professional beer and wine tasters)

then society would grind to a halt and

humans would devolve into illiterate

hunter-gatherers with no mobile

phones, coffee shops or hospitals.

Don't tell malevolent lies or practice

fraud because it will erode trust values

turning all communities into debased

and violent autocracies with oppressive

police forces and corrupt government

with everyone being even more hostile

to each other than they already are

(if such a thing were actually possible).

Above all, don't take hard drugs because

if everyone was high on crack cocaine

or crystal meth or even strong skunk

then trains would never run on time and

there would be loads of car crashes and

apps would not work properly because

software developers would not know

their asses from their elbows.

So there it is, ignoring the categorical

imperative and not making the maxim of

your action a universal law will result in

corrosive chaos with ostriches, crocodiles

termites and other low IQ, uncultured

lifeforms knowing jack shit about anything

inheriting the earth, never composing or 

reading poems and being utterly boring.

John F. Keane lives in Manchester, in the UK.  A software developer and securities trader, he has published poems in a number of British anthologies and publications.  These include the Live from Worktown Anthology 5 (2018), the Poetry from the Platform Anthology (2021), Prole (2010), Best of Manchester Poets Volume 3 (2013) and The Bread and Roses Award Anthology (2018).  In addition, he has published poems in a number of international publications including Analog, the American speculative fiction magazine and Jubilat, literary journal of the University of Massachusetts.  He also won Bolton Station's Community Partnership contest in 2020 and the 2021 Ekphrastic Poetry Contest sponsored by the Friendswood Public Library, Texas.