Skinning Bugs
“You can draw what you want, you can
read what you want, you can stay up late
watching old monster movies if you want…
But you will do this, you are going to do this:
you need to learn skills for the real world!”
My father was yelling at me, but it was not
in anger, it was out of sincere exasperation.
I didn’t want to do it — no way, but I knew
how limited my options were, and my dad
had begun his argument with more gives
than I had yet been granted, all at once.
“Please,” he said. “Do this and then we
will all get on with what’s left of our day.”
I felt the redness of my cheeks, I felt
hornet stings in my eyes, I felt my tears
flow out the stressed dams of my eyes.
He threw the rabbit at my feet…
And as shown, as told,
I skinned the rabbit.
My dad was happy I did it.
When my tears dried, I spent
the rest of my day drawing.
I hated my dad that day
but I have loved him for it.
Slackers
The secret of the slacker is they rarely
make mistakes, so they can present well
to management, and they rarely make
mistakes because they don’t work
hard enough or often enough to create
opportunities for errors to occur.
When hard working staff decide to work
together, leaving the slackers to work
with each other, none of the slackers
will have a hard worker to hide behind,
and be forced to work or else, they will
create a third option for themselves,
and will spend their energies not working,
but work to make hard workers look bad.
The hard-working staff pick up the slack
doing twice the workload which doubles
the potential for mistakes.
When the hard-working staff picking up
the slack of the slacker, doing more work,
and tiring faster, makes a mistake that
shouldn’t have been their mistake to make
in the first place, the slacker will point
in fake righteousness and triumph and say,
“See? See? There, I told you! Do you see?”
… As they stick their nose
up some manager’s starfish.
Fires Of Summer
How did we sleep
while our forests
were felled by fires,
homes were burned
and lives imperilled?
We have woken up with
smoke choked throats.
3 POEMS FROM LEPER MOSH (Cajun Mutt Press 2022)
How You Hurt
True, you would not hurt a fly,
but is it likely you would help it?
You would await the arrival of another,
to whom you would delegate the duty of aid.
As you wait for this one to arrive,
you would watch the harmed creature writhe,
all the while claiming inability to help.
If no one arrives for you to delegate to,
you will stand idly by, as they say,
and you will watch as life leaves it,
without it ever dawning on you to feel
guilt over your inaction, and lethargy.
True, you would not hurt a fly.
Ascent
She had
the only private room
in the ward.
In there, a scent
of something unknown,
unfamiliar yet, inevitable
greeted your entrance.
You stood
at the foot of her bed.
She broke
the silence
between you,
asked, if you remembered
how she used to look
and you did…
She asked, if you remembered
times she began to speak
but did not continue…
And you did.
It was hard for her to believe
you remembered her beauty
beyond the ravage of the malignant.
Her dreams run dry:
she prayed to drown.
She had
wild
blue-green eyes
not even cancer could steal.
Your bodies
told you once,
you existed.
Nothing was as sacred,
as profane, as the fading warmth.
Her flight left lingering
a remembered scent of a perfume
nameless and indelible.
You perpetuate
the pedestal
she flies from.
Route
Oncoming cars slow:
I walk where pedestrians
are not allowed.
Many well worn
roads cover our world.
You might drive fast,
while I walk along;
you will see wind swept
signs as swift blurs,
only gaining sight
in cracked rear view mirrors.
I will see them all too clearly,
weary at roadside.
Dried clumps and flecks
of dead flies loosen
from grills, wipers, mirrors
in swift passage.
There are always live flies
above road kill.
Roads we choose may
be under construction.
A sniper upon an overpass
may take aim and fire.
Municipal bridges in derelict
ridings may collapse
beneath us as we cross.
You drive. I walk. But if
you break down, I will
walk no further on
©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.
