Holiday Whiskey
Twas a night I can’t remember
The day and time are lost
I sat watching flickering lights
Sipping on a whiskey
Alone with those blinking colors
Alone with my own thoughts
This was my usual past time
During holiday nights
My mind began to wander and
I recalled one Christmas
A memory smelling of death
A sudden tragedy
That never left my family
Even thirty years past
It looms over the holiday
Leaving an awful taste
My mind again did wander to
Another Christmas day
I was young and saw my father
As he beat my sister
The violence was not new in him
He had beat my mother
But never on a holiday
No holidays were good
If not domestic violence
My parents would argue
I remember all the bad times
The happy times were few
I sit watching flickering lights
Sipping on a whiskey
Alone with those blinking colors
Alone with my own thoughts
The Moon Smiles as Humanity Dies
This is the end
No more sunrises
No more stargazing
We’ve killed ourselves
Yet we go through the motions
We continue marching towards oblivion
Is this a simulation
When the clock counts down
Will we restart at the beginning
An explosion that reboots the universe
A continual time loop
Repeating until we get it right
Are we all depressed and suicidal
Because we know the end is here
Or is it the only way to motivate
Everyone to stand and fight
To fix what we’ve broken
To heal the planet before we kill her
Earth is dying
Humanity is dying
The stars and galaxies continue spinning
What will the Moon do when Earth dies
Who will remember the robot rovers of Mars
Who will remember us
Not the Moon
From the poetry collection Cats, Coffee, Catharsis.
James Pack 