2 Poems by Patrick Theron Erickson

EATING DISORDER

I buy the loaf
for want of praise

and break the bread
alone and eat

never missing the leavening
nor the wheat taken away

I grow indolent
on the worthless filler

and never know the lean
nor the stout ones
too long at the lard

nor their leaner friends
forever dieting

The more I’m made
of boastful stuff

the more I binge
the less I purge.


SLALOM

As surely as
wisdom hones its tribute
razor sharp

sanity
is the whetstone

and truth
the razor’s edge

Therefore
keep your wits
about you

and sharpen your skillset
your intellect

Don’t dumb down
to beat the rush

For learning
is a slippery slope

and knowledge
the downhill plunge.


Bionote

Patrick Theron Erickson, a resident of Garland, Texas, a Tree City, just south of Duck Creek, is a retired parish pastor put out to pasture himself. His work has appeared in Poetry Pacific, Grey Sparrow Journal, Cobalt Review, and Burningword Literary Journal, among other publications, and more recently in Right Hand Pointing, Tipton Poetry Journal, Wilderness House Literary Review and Danse Macabre.