A Funny Game
By Steven Bennett

What a funny game life is,
The worst days are the best.
Lasting opinions are believed to the next day
Where they are turned on their head
You know something ’til you don’t
Still later, you realize you never did.

It’s an interesting game as well,
When you find glory in hell.
Then you discover yourself, and realize
Your thoughts were important after all.
You had disguised your thoughts, and the stirrings of
your heart as if to suggest they were to blame all along.

The birds sing in the day, and the locusts shirk
their responsibilities only on the coldest night.
Wild animals don’t know the difference
Between a passing score or successful work review.

They know nothing of not having capital
Or working for something meaningful,
Or working for something of no importance,
Or least as much so as it relates to the soul.

So, people are most interesting of all.
They live intentionally, following a diverging arc,
Only to discover one another on a cloudy Tuesday night
as if they were on a collision path.

A certain stranger, never to be seen or heard from again
Leaves a lasting image in the mind.
The twinkle in the eye is more memorable than
the epitome of our dreams.

And we learn once more what joy is.
Something more than anything we ever seemed to delight in.

That is our life, the funny plot with twists and turns.
The only life we know.
No one wants to be blind and know nothing,

Yet limited time is wasted,
Not playing the funny little game.