Sunday, January 11, 2015

Tim Laffey- Three Poems


Further Room 

Western thought has not conceded
consciousness
to the animals that share
this world. We
note the instincts that compel
their complex acts. We marvel at those
embedded skills resulting in
such widely ranging,
elegant reactions to
various stimuli. Yet we detect
no signs of self-awareness
there. They are natural
contraptions lacking
an enduring purpose
in their single being. Then
my cat walks over
to a closed door,
rises on her two hind legs and shifting
weight to her front paws,
she pushes it open
so that she
may walk into that
further room.



Efficiency

The times have changed.
Computerized word processors
build poetry
for us
faster
and more easily than
typewriters ever could,
efficiently
and with fewer
typographical and
transcription errors,
            though
perhaps
no greater content or value.
Still
laziness may seem
athletic in its grace if
properly displayed.
Soon it seems
our robots will dance.


 
Everything We Need

I have the mail,
she texted. And I’ve got
cigarettes, I replied.

I told her that on my walk
back up to the house today,
I saw a banded snake
slithering in the marshy reeds
that ring the pond.

Are you hungry? she asked.
Well, perhaps just
a little. Here,

she offered. Bite
into this. It’s something new
I’m trying.

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