Poetry|Karma|Learning
Consequence — a Poem
Tales off a prompt

Over the last week or two I came across several prompts from Marla Bishop, Paul Myers MBA and Timothy Key. The words were August, shush, transience and consequence. They rattled around for a while and came together as one poem. It reflects the heat in California. The fires raging up north. The discontent radiating off the tarmac as I drive to work — on some days, but not all. And even in these words — I am still very hopeful of the future. It’s just how the emotions make themselves known. 😊
Consequence
Heat — like rays from an old Flash Gordon movie, stunned me into submission — I’ve grown tired. From an August filled with discontent. Angered by a droning lack of respect, a lingering disagreement with 2019, being a much better year.
Who could have seen? It argues. Who would have thought — a virus. Infinitely small, indefinably inconsiderate would have smacked a year right in the mouth and dared it to disbelieve.
Shush — it seems to say. Quiet your dreams and your life, laid out neatly like tracks on the Northern Pacific. Shush and be humbled, for I am the Mother. I see. You’ve been bad. You don’t listen. Do you hear me now?
Heat — bounces off the tarmac, like radio waves off the moon. Like lust from the sweating bodies of newlyweds at a Motel 6 in Omaha. Wrapped in cool comfort — A/C on — dreams subsiding, in transience as the future slams headlong into the present. Will it ever be this good again?
Oh, consequence. Lift your heavy boot off my neck and piss off, for you’ve made your point. You’ve set the record straight. We've been naughty. But unlike children, naughty is not cute, not photo-worthy. Just dumb. We get it. Now, leave us … please.

Joe Luca is writer and editor for ILLUMINATION and a published author and writer of children’s stories, short fiction, non-fiction articles, screenplays and poetry. Publications include Child’s Life, Children’s Playmate and others. There are some other articles below — have a read. And thank you for stopping by.
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