Patrick Theron Erickson
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 Sheila-Na-Gig online, Grey Sparrow Journal, Tipton Poetry Journal, and The Main Street Rag, among other publications, and more recently in The Oddville Press, Vox Poetica, Adelaide Literary Magazine and Futures Trading.
RESTLAND
In the morning mail
unsolicited advertisements
for hearing aids
and for Restland
the fallacy
of circular reasoning
blatant
as if I’ll need
hearing aids in Restland
And here
at the bottom
of the stack
in simple black
and white
diminutive
compared to the rest
a direct appeal by a
nationally syndicated crematorium
for disposal by cremation
And the irony does not
fail to escape me
as so much does
The dead I’m told
(how else would I know?)
can rise up
with the air
that’s still in them
one last gasp
one and done
simple
and unsensational.
SLIPSTREAM
Fishing
with one’s bare hands
when one is blind
is like shooting fish
in a barrel
when he is nearsighted
unless he is
farsighted enough
to bring along
his fishing gear
and clear sighted enough
not to go fishing
in a catch and release stream
to begin with
unless he is noodling
all along
in which case
let the good times roll.
Sheila-Na-Gig online 