Live and Die
On their own people live and die.
Some leave a scar behind. Some are
mute as stones. Some are shrewd.
Some are burnt to ashes. We all
should look forward to death.
I will drink to it in the pouring rain.
Day and night, I will drink to it.
Many of us will all stiffen on some
coroner’s slab, our raw flesh, dissected.
We should feel lucky to be ghosts.
We will haunt and pester our enemies.
We will never grow weary of our
new lives. We will own the night.
I will clear my throat at odd hours.
There will be no blood inside me.
I will offer deadly poisons to my
enemies. The ghost life will be glorious.
A Man Dines Alone
A man dines alone.
His name is Pat.
He is at the bakery
with coffee and cake.
To hell he says with
doctor advice.
The diabetes is coming
any day or night.
How many days will
it be to go
to the hospital and be
declared not alive?
He is eating and
drinking himself
to death. He listens to no one.
He will die alone.
Dead Bugs
Dead bugs on the window screen.
Some are big and some are small.
I can see for miles and miles.
The dead bugs no longer see.
I am convinced there are bigger
windows and dead bugs. I am sure
size makes no difference to death.
©2023 Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal All rights reserved.
Born in Mexico, Luis lives in California and works in the mental health field in Los Angeles. His poems have appeared in Blue Collar Review, Cajun Mutt Press, Escape Into Life, Mad Swirl, Oddball Magazine, and Unlikely Stories.