The Astronaut
by Brian Rosenberger
“Martians, my ass,”
He tells anyone within shouting distance,
Between the quiet and his next shot of whiskey,
As the TV fluctuates between porn and preachers,
Orgasms and the End of Days.
Who knows what’s real?
The bartender ignores the Astronaut.
She’s been ignoring him for a decade.
If he gets out of hand, if anyone gets out of
hand, she has
a revolver in reach,
A Smith and Wesson, just like Dirty Harry.
Good enough for Clint Eastwood. Good enough for
her.
And a Louisville Slugger, signed by Hank Aaron.
She loved the Braves, played softball in college.
The bar itself, a graveyard, most of the stools
and booths
populated by ghosts.
Sometimes by the random tourists, seekers of greener
pastures,
Optimists of a brighter tomorrow.
The Astronaut holds court to anyone willing to
listen.
Always eager to sign an autograph, take a photo,
On have an in-depth one-on-one session back at
the hotel.
You’d be surprised how many hotel trips
he’s taken.
The End of Days after all.
All he has is time, time at the bar, time for
those who
remember.
He walked on Mars and survived. The Martians did
not.
He and his crew killed all those
green-skinned-sons-of-bitches.
Every man, woman, and child.
Or so his story goes.
That which shadows Earth now, not fucking Martians.
Not
even close.
This is not revenge and not his fault.
Fuck the Government. Fuck the Politicians, and
their
Fucking Lies.
He was there. He shoveled the Martian soil. He
buried their
green corpses.
He’ll testify between shots. Whiskey preferred.
Between the End of the World and the next.
Daytime lullaby
by Brian Rosenberger
While we slept, the last humans
Raced through the streets,
Past our home, rejoicing.
They ran, celebrating Life, the
Sun,
The freedom to run, and each other.
They ran to the point of exhaustion
And then ran more.
Desire drives them.
We understand desire.
Now they rest.
When the Sun replaces the Moon,
And our slumber is over,
It will be our time to run.
And the last of the humans
Will run from us.
Yellow Tape
by Brian
Rosenberger
Saturday.
No work. No rat race. No one hour
plus commute.
No water cooler gossip about office
politics, local or national news,
Nothing about sports, celebrities,
the weather, or corporate backstabbing.
A chance to be human again.
I unwind at the Park. It’s
an escape.
Given my small-town roots and
now living
In a Mid-sized and growing city,
It’s my time to disconnect
and reconnect.
A chance to be me, not some soulless,
worker drone.
I’m more than just a name
tag and a cubicle.
But today, yellow tape prevents
me from my normal
Saturday morning stroll.
I’m not the only one put
out.
I see joggers, and people with
strollers, people with dogs,
People with people.
All wondering what’s going
on in the Park.
Yellow tape. Crime scene. No admittance.
No entry.
Quietly, I watch the chaos unfold.
Smiling.
I once read something about how
it takes far less muscles
To smile than to frown.
I smile.
The Park serves as a great hunting
ground
But maybe it’s time I find
a new burial ground.
Brian
Rosenberger lives in a cellar in Marietta, GA and writes by the light of
captured fireflies. He is the author of As the Worm Turns and three
poetry collections—Poems That Go Splat, And For My Next Trick...,
and Scream for Me.
