New Poetry by Brian Beatty

The End of Trouble

Everything my teachers

committed to 

their blackboards

looked to my eyes 

like a chalk outline of a body. 

Mind you, I never saw 

anyone killed

or heard so much as a rumor 

of children

actually murdered

or disappeared 

but bully threats

and that common small town fear 

of being bored to death

I’ll never forget. 

I feel chills right now. 

To my bones. Don’t you?

Bored to death is real.

If nothing more, I learned that much 

from all those unamused

teachers  

I likewise recall 

sending me to stick my nose 

in the corner

for talking to my friends 

Mark and Chris — 

two guys who both wound up dead

before forty for reasons 

I only remember don’t matter. 

 

One in prison, one just 

fucking around.

How did I survive? you wonder.   

By hiding inside 

books where I knew 

I’d never be found.

- Brian Beatty 2014

Brian Beatty's jokes, poems and short stories have appeared in numerous print and online publications, including The Bark, Conduit, Elephant Journal, elimae, The Evergreen Review, Gulf Coast, Hobart, McSweeney's, Opium, Paper Darts, The Quarterly, Seventeen and The Sycamore Review. He sometimes performs as a storyteller.