Two Poems By W. Barrett Munn

Shame

Do other creatures feel shame?
A spider? Have I spun my own life
around a web to protect from feeling shame?

How do I fight this invisible opponent?
Or is shame figment only, a Christmas ghost, a Marley,
a bit of meat undigested, or something drunk?
Does the bright red flame burn flesh; does the fluttering breath
take the soul; is this feeling really death or emotional poverty?

Shame wears tattered rags, tosses coal into the furnace, 
feels the face burn, the brow drip sweat, while the body reeks,
and the air fills with the odor of the ordinary: 
shameful stink of sweat.

Two Kinds of Right

I couldn't do it the right way.
I had to do it my way right
for me. That was life in suburbia
when fear of "the bomb" was
beaten out by The Beatles and
boys with long hair.

I was the light bulb and you
were the current but you wouldn't
light me up. Where was your
alternating current when my 
electrodes were exposed?

I remained in the closet where
secrets could be kept in size
nine shoe boxes, brown and tan
saddle oxfords, and a matching
belt.

The world went crazy for the 
boys from Liverpool while I 
went crazy for someone else.
A star is born every day, they
say. I hate to be recalcitrant, but 
there's only one Barbara.

W. Barrett Munn, is a graduate of The Institute of Children’s Literature where he studied writing under Larry Callen. His poetry has been published in Copperfiled Review Quarterly, Volney Road Review, Speckled Trout Review, New Verse News, Book of Maches, and many others are scheduled for future publication in 2023.