SAD NEWS & THE NEW MATH
ALM No.77, June 2025
POETRY
sad news & the new math
like a
rag doll
in a
young girl’s
hug of arms
is the infant
in her mother’s
as lifeless
arm dangles
the face gone
fire from
the steel
forge sky
falls in
planned but really
random patterns
the city
like Carthage
“in retribution”
not one stone
left upon another
this Shayget
abominable situation
brings forth
only a crock of
cold forced tear
from any
too distant nation
terror and
fearful death
respectfully keep
their distance
from any of
the rich
more powerful lands
easy there
to forget
thy Biblical
math for
justice now
when an eye
for an eye
has done multiplied to
65 4 1
more salt
heavy is
the hurting heart
of the forever
foundling strange
discovering now
the strange land
of fame
& fortune
never going to be
hound hunting
down a sad
and forking path
of smoldering
wood desolation
in the darkness
at noon
for some soul
howling @
a missing,
I did say
midday, moon
the howl
soliloquy silent
strangling that
holy hurting heart
public confession
for 34 years
I seldom
wrote by/for/
of her but
now for sure
that’s almost
all I ink
this is
the lean cry
of loss
the oft told
tale of
the sudden
mateless mutt’
but “life
goes on”
in the all
too too common
lie
don’t ask why
haven’t a clue
my heart
is bitter though
yet I do
devour it
every hour
of every day
really could
use some
more salt
Mr. Shepley is a writer who lives and works, still, in Sacramento, CA. He has had the luck since 1997 to place some 120 poems in more than 60 "small lit sources", like: Common Ground, Blue Unicorn, The Kerf, Santa Fe Review, Muse India, Vallum (Canada), Provincia (Argentina), Trajectory, to name some few. He has just put together his first chap book of poems and drawings (as he searches for a way to avoid it being "Vanity") titled, per a criticism-MORE SHARPER EDGES... though one might think a Masters holder would talk English better..."
