Worming One’s Way In Languor
Their eyes slide over you when you
walk in the dim bar and inch through
the milling, processional crowd bidding
to be next served at the long counter.
The heavily made up women sit close
at their corner table nursing drinks,
their drinking funds palliative.
Either one will have you but not until
they finish the drinks they are on, then
the obligatory ones you will buy them.
They have that “Take me… But not
just yet” look loitering in their eyes
as heavy and half shut as yours:
you wave at the bartender, circle
one hand in the air and point down
at table, nod at the women, pull up
an unvarnished chair and sit down
under press of buzzed and languid
dead calm nonchalance.
You exchange the usual opening
overtures, worming ways into the core
of everyone’s shared intentions,
look from one to the other, take in
the possibilities to wrestle with.
New Ghosts For Christmas
The ghost of Christmas Past
appeared, shivering, covered
in fur cloaks, frosted cheeks,
frozen nose hairs and eye brows,
and with breath that bellowed
below zero.
The ghost of Christmas Present
is here, comfortable in normal dress
and a Spring jacket, in left over tan,
a complexion the picture of health,
bewildered that but for sooner dark,
’tis a normal day.
The ghost of Chistmas Future
will arrive in surfer shorts
and summer shades, walking in sandals,
skin rife with melanoma, saying “The odds
of snowfall fail cost/benefit analysis
of placing a bet.”
Last Stand
Don’t stand on that clearance sale chair
swept up in circular self isolation.
Don’t stand on that clearance sale chair
believing we will be legends later.
Don’t stand on that clearance sale chair
tightening a tie round your neck
of braided twisted cordage:
one leg of the faux wood chair
creaks and strains under you…
Unsure of itself,
it might give out
before you do.
©2023 David Alec Knight All rights reserved.
David Alec Knight grew up in Chatham, Ontario, Canada.
He includes his middle name in his pen name as a means of disambiguation, his first and last name being fairly common. It is in response to being ignorantly perceived as a pretension by others that he wrote the poem “Disambiguation”.
In 2021, David was recipient of The Ted Plantos Memorial Award for Poetry. His first book of poetry, The Heart Is A Hollow Organ, soon followed. His second book of poetry, LEPER MOSH, was published by Cajun Mutt Press in 2022. It featured his artwork on the cover. Cajun Mutt Press would also feature a portfolio of his artwork online, as well as publishing his first full color comic story online, WRATH: The Masks We Wear.
Recent poems have appeared in Verse Afire, Cajun Mutt Press Featured Poet, The Lothlorien Poetry Journal and Medusa’s Kitchen. Anthology appearances include By The Wishing Tree, Poets For Ukraine Volume 1, Love Lies Bleeding, Phantom Parade, and The Cajun Mutt Press Halloween Anthology Zine 2022.
David sees dark and light around him in equal measure and that is reflected in his poetry, whether exploring working class themes, neurodivergence, addiction, urban living, our conflict with Nature, and/or the effects all these things have on individuals and relationships.
David works full-time in Long Term Care.