“How Blessed To Burn Alive”

By Bud Sturguess

This morning, I woke to find my manor was burning.

I’d heard rumors about the neighbors being on fire,

or some such story,

but I’d long ago painted my windows black.

When I was stirred awake by

a constant crinkling and popping,

when I saw my Beatlemania collection melting

in psychedelic apocalyptic colors,

I decided it was finally true.

All the books in the study were scarfed by hungry flames:

Milton, Dante, a Fitzgerald or two,

and a leather-bound Iliad I translated myself.

I said to no one in particular,

it’s good to lose a few million words – 

it frees up space for new information.

Too much learning can drive you mad.

The pantries and the dining room were likewise engulfed,

a peek at hell’s kitchen.

It’s just as well, I resigned –

no more hosting meals for the poor on Thanksgiving.

They’re always so awkward, those events.

I never know what to say.

It’s insulting anyway, to ask

How’s the sidewalk lately?

Outside, in the fresh air, the stable was collapsing:

Silver Blaze, who’d dominated so many derbies

was trapped in the inferno.

Fortunately for her and me, she was too hungry to notice.

I kept a stiff upper lip. All things must die.

Nature would be thrown into chaos

if horses were immortal.

Only now that the manor is a smoking skeleton,

a shell of its former plastic and stucco glory,

I notice my memory, too, is burning:

Sweet things and awful things both,

mathematics and geometry,

earnest faces, happy faces, duckfaces,

Santa’s workshop,

the white cliffs of Dover,

all going down in flames.

Little Hindenburgs in my heart,

a million reenactments of Icarus in my brain.

I admit, in all humility,

I’m tempted to shed a tear.

It’s surreal –

your first crush, and the butterflies that came with it,

withering to ash and carried by the wind. 

But I’ll be brave as we burn.

I’ve resolved to be stoic and statuesque:

Good old days are only concepts

and what should be is the least of these embers.

I’ll look to the future and bathe

in the eternal orange glow.

I’ll count my blessings –

Halloween and summer solstice every day of the year.

Bud Sturguess was born in the small cotton-and-oil town of Seminole, Texas. He has self-published several books, his latest being the novella The Angels Must Be British. His poetry and fiction appear in Barren Magazine, Longleaf Review, and Heart of Flesh Literary Journal.