Eighty-three:

The banishing of Plump Jack:

If I am old, and plump,

and with white hairs 

do not witness it. Please

ignore my whiteness. Discount 

my innocence. I don’t want 

your reverence. I know by my color 

that I am damned. And if I am hated 

because I am white, and fat, then so be it.

If you can love only the pharaohs lean kin

then you can’t see me anymore than I am 

predisposed to no longer harbor a glimpse of you.

More is the pity. For what is unity without 

tolerance? What is us without we?

©️Mark W. Ó Brien

29Mar2022

 

Eighty-two:

My ornery old cuss keeps leaking out:

and I am no longer 

as convinced 

of my correctness 

as I was when I was young.

Also, I find I have little tolerance for stupid.

So please, stop proselytizing.

You don’t get to be an expert 

just because you have 

found yourself on a soapbox.

Everyone can still throw tomatoes.

And I would rather 

eat mine

than waste it on you.

©️Mark W. ÓBrien 

20Mar2022

Eighty-one:

#81 (Crypt 261.)

It is three in the morning and my mind asks:

“Who was Lillian Webster?”

What am I doing?

Why am I asking this question?

“Well? Who is she?”

Wiki says she was a starlet who was famous 

for a silent film named “Everybody’s doing it.”

The film is no longer in existence

so no one knows what everybody was doing.

Her boyfriend who was supposed to marry her 

was arrested for passing bad checks.

Three months after he went to jail

Lillian Webster died during an operation.

I guess we know what “everybody” was doing. 

©️Mark W. ÓBrien 

14Mar2022