Wednesday Night
by David N. Menzies

He couldn’t go to sleep thinking.
Every evening, he began the escapist
Ritual: watching TV, never blinking
Away the sight of Angel maintaining
The Good fight despite the feeling
That he was damned. He found his
Heart braced itself from this reeling
Earth, coming to him in glimpses 
Between that dark and fanciful script
Performed—and superimposing thoughts
For a mind that only wanted to clinch
That there was something better—but
Interrupted by previews of Death,
Framed in segments; “Soldier killed
In peacetime, news at ten.” Death:
No thought for him until it spills
As empty entertainment. The news
Sneaks up on you, just when purpose
Seems like it’s more than lives abused
For no Good reason; a person’s 
Mind can rest when things happen
For aims it can endorse as sane.
But in bed, hours after Angel, tapping
A nightstand, trying to bear the bane
Of his existence, he thinks and is afraid:
Life is at the mercy of men who hurl
Common men’s lives at demons they made.
Why? Peace? They say it is already ours.
So in their script, there are the damned too,
Fighting to maintain a peace, which 
Doesn’t seem all that Good. The hue
Of a Thursday sun cannot flip this switch. 

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