<div class="line"><em>A Proposal</em></div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">I’m down before you on my bended knee</div>
<div class="line">Offering a ring. Diners strain to hear me speak.</div>
<div class="line">My hat, white suit, and words, circa 1940,</div>
<div class="line">All fold before you as I bend my knee</div>
<div class="line">And ask your hand. The war worries the country</div>
<div class="line">And we might all be dead within a week.</div>
<div class="line">I’m down before you on a bended knee</div>
<div class="line">Offering this ring. I strain and strain to speak.</div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line"><em>An Observing Woman at Another Table</em></div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">More interested in the butter than this scene,</div>
<div class="line">My affianced appears to count the fork tine</div>
<div class="line">By tine. My lump of a man slumps over the cuisine</div>
<div class="line">More interested in plain butter than this scene,</div>
<div class="line">And all meal long not a word passed between</div>
<div class="line">My love and I. The waiter poured wine and wine.</div>
<div class="line">More interested in the butter than this scene</div>
<div class="line">My affianced appears as dull as the fork tine.</div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line"><em>The Man Who Wants to Leave</em></div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">My hat is on the table; I know it’s unmannerly,</div>
<div class="line">But <em>le garcon</em> keeps passing, passing us by.</div>
<div class="line">The little wife says, “We have nowhere to be,</div>
<div class="line">Take your hat off the table; it’s unmannerly.”</div>
<div class="line">“I’m stubborn, lady.” “Be patient, why can’t you be</div>
<div class="line">patient?” Her cheeks quiver, she’s going to cry.</div>
<div class="line">My hat is on the table; I know it’s unmannerly.</div>
<div class="line">So, dammit, is the <em>garcon </em>passing passing us by.</div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line"><em>The Man Seated Alone</em></div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">I don’t know why I’m here, but I’ve nowhere else to be</div>
<div class="line">And so I sit, food gone, bill paid. I’m not wanted</div>
<div class="line">By anyone, not my wife or kids, not the maître d’.</div>
<div class="line">No one wants me here, but I’ve nowhere else to be</div>
<div class="line">Except among the non-living, all of them like me.</div>
<div class="line">The world is still and fine, it’s only me that’s haunted.</div>
<div class="line">I don’t know why I’m here, where I don’t want to be,</div>
<div class="line">And so I sit, bill paid, food gone, and know I’m not wanted.</div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line"><em>The Lone Human Diner</em></div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">I wait for them to move, resume their lives.</div>
<div class="line">Will one raise the water glass to her lips?</div>
<div class="line">A roomful of fake hands rest by shiny knives.</div>
<div class="line">I wait for them to move, resume their lives,</div>
<div class="line">Stroll outside to see what from before survives,</div>
<div class="line">How the world changed during the apocalypse.</div>
<div class="line">I wait for them to move, resume their lives.</div>
<div class="line">Will she please raise a glass to her lips?</div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line"><em>The Woman Being Asked the Question</em></div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">Ten thousand tomorrows hang on my reply,</div>
<div class="line">Some bad some good in the yes or no I give.</div>
<div class="line">Can he see the future like a filmstrip in my eye?</div>
<div class="line">Ten thousand tomorrows hang on my reply,</div>
<div class="line">Possible lives I accept, other ones I must deny.</div>
<div class="line">Will this be the rut-stuck existence I have to live?</div>
<div class="line">Ten thousand tomorrows hang on my reply,</div>
<div class="line">Some good some bad—no or yes? I give.</div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/LeisingDining.mp3"></audio></figure>

Higher Love

Poets Respond

(T)(o)(o)  (C) (l) (o) (s) (e)

Five Mannequins and One Person at the Socially Distanced Dining Room

<div class="line">There’s been another mass shooting—</div>
<div class="line">somehow this has become routine</div>
<div class="line">as brushing teeth, and we go shouting,</div>
<div class="line">“There’s been another mass shooting!”</div>
<div class="line">while lax-lawed guns go on polluting</div>
<div class="line">our world like a gas-powered machine.</div>
<div class="line">There’s been another mass shooting.</div>
<div class="line">Somehow this has become routine.</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">Somehow this has become routine:</div>
<div class="line">There’s been another mass shooting,</div>
<div class="line">a disease for which there’s no vaccine.</div>
<div class="line">Somehow this has become routine</div>
<div class="line">and though mad at the bloody scene</div>
<div class="line">we let gun nuts go right on shooting.</div>
<div class="line">Somehow this has become routine.</div>
<div class="line">There’s been another mass shooting.</div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/LeisingRoseburg.mp3"></audio></figure>

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October 4, 2015Two Variations on a Triolet with Refrains from President Obama’s Statement on the Shooting in Roseburg, OregonGary Leising

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October 4, 2015Two Variations on a Triolet with Refrains from President Obama’s Statement on the Shooting in Roseburg, OregonGary Leising

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Five Mannequins and One Person at the Socially Distanced Dining Room by Gary Leising