REAGAN SOSEBEE - POEMS

Reagan Sosebee, from Austin, Texas, is a 35-year-old family man with an unconventional writing style that is both captivating and unapologetic.  He tries to depict every imaginable emotion from the deepest hurt to the most blissful pleasure.  Reagan is an accountant with an undergraduate degree in Business Administration from Concordia University Texas.  When he’s not outdoors with his wife and children, he can be found, or maybe not, on some Texas highway, feet up on his motorcycle.  He prides himself on a candid lifestyle and an ostensible inability to be dishonest.  Sosebee’s writing, from children’s books to poetry to novels, is passionate and gifted.  He has self-published two books to date and is pleased to have found an avenue to share his creativity with the world.  

The United States of Awful

I’m disappointed in our country, but I’d still never leave
Because I realize if we do the work how much better we can be
In my short life I’ve already seen so much change in this country
And a lot of it’s good but a lot of it’s also ugly
I’m too used to seeing families on the news mourning
Because some idiot came to school and shot their child without warning
Other countries are looking at us and damn do we look ripe
A bunch of do nothing, obese, entitled whiners
Who won’t take action but love to gripe
When we were young we used to cut grass and babysit
But this generation here is the laziest
When tragedies happen we come together and sing songs
But man that’s what we should’ve been doing all along
It seems everyone has their favorite reasons to hate each other
We treat our women like objects instead of wives and mothers
We make it all seem like some super hard riddle
But we’ll lock you up for weed and give murderers acquittals
We give big businesses tax breaks and deductions
We got child abductions and government corruption
We mistreated the indigenous people with no fear
And ran them out just so we could make our home here
It’s like we try so hard to outdo our own infamy
We have money hungry leaders, racism, and bigotry
We assume police will fail us and they behave true to form
A good cop is barely more common than a unicorn
We removed God from our t.v.’s, our schools, and occupations
We’re decreasing our humanity while increasing our population
We use hateful words and dirty looks instead of compliments
And we’ve forgotten how to use our manners and our common sense
We shove handfuls of unhealthy food in our faces
It’s disgusting how much of what we have gets wasted
Let’s turn this thing around before it’s too late
So we can all still be proud to live in the United States
​

Code Talker

​When my boss asks me how I’m doing
What she actually means is what am I doing
Because here in the workplace we speak in codes
And things sound like one thing but mean another
In the world of fake smiles and pretending to care
People ask you if you caught the game even when they didn’t
They look up what’s trending to have something to talk about
Then bring it up to hide the fact that their life is mundane
They say “I guess we’re gonna stop on every single floor”,
And chuckle
But what they really mean is “I cant wait to get off this elevator”
Everyone’s voice is just a little bit higher
Because I guess a deep voice equals scary
The people who take the stairs will be sure to let you know it
And the people who work the hardest are given the most work
When you ask someone how they’re doing,
You almost never get a real answer
Because honestly they’re miserable,
And wish they were somewhere else
So they say “Well I’m here” or “Another day in paradise”
Followed by “How ‘bout this weather though”
To divert your attention from the sadness in their eyes
Then there’s lots of before’s and after’s
Where you really just say the same thing twice
Like asking someone if they have plans for the weekend
Then asking them how their weekend was
Or on every day but Friday you say “Is it Friday yet?”
Then when Friday comes you say “Thank God it’s Friday”
If a woman is beautiful, you can’t come out and say it
Instead you have to use “You look very nice today”
 
If you’re sick and don’t want anybody to know
You simply blame it on allergies
If you’re not sick but really need to take a day off
You start coughing real loud the whole day before
Nobody really cares about your kid’s baseball game
And if you actually did do anything cool
They’ll just use it to start some rumor or gossip,
Like how does she have the money to do that,
I wonder who watches her kids,
Or I bet he does a lotta drugs and cheats on his wife
There’s a guy who walks in with you the same time every morning
That always makes sure you have your badge
As if he doesn’t know you
There’s the “Do you wanna buy
Some of whatever my kid is selling for school?” lady
And that idiot who always talks
About that one Christmas party from 3 years ago
When so and so got drunk. Haha, wasn’t that hilarious?
No, it’s actually not that funny
And believe it or not there’s still the guy
Who points with both his hands and makes finger guns
And people actually think he’s cool, but not as much as he does
And the quiet guy with the headphones on
Who’s always “listening to his music”
Knows everybody’s business
Because they think that he can’t hear them
It’s kinda like high school all over again,
Except you can’t cuss as much or get high in the bathroom
You got the cool kids, the cliques,
The teacher’s pet and the outcasts
 
And personality will take you ten times further than ability
“You’re special” is the nice way of saying “You’re stupid”
And “That's just the way we've always done it”
Means they don’t want your suggestion
And if someone sarcastically tells you they hate you
They mean it.  I promise.  They told me.
If you make friends with someone of the opposite sex
No matter what, people will think y’all are having sex
People joke around about their work wives and work husbands
But never go home and tell their real wives and real husbands
The workplace is the fakest environment I know of
I guess that’s why I’m so bad at it.  I suck at pretending
So if you see me in the hallway and I’m no good at small talk

Don’t get your feelings hurt.  I’m really just here to make money

Award Winning Poem

​The clock on the wall says 2689
And at 2700 I’m jumbled I might go sane
What if my mind stops arguing with me?
I swear I’ll make a fire and burn my slap bracelet
I’m tired of being stared at by plangent grasshoppers
Who quantify the unequivocal dalliance of the equinox
As if they’ve discovered my awareness of their alien consanguinity
I was friendly with the big one 
But two days before last he instructed me to strike the dog 
Undoubtedly she comprehended his uttering 
Immediately thereafter she ate him
Bad dog I exclaimed as I hurled a toenail at her
I strolled into the pervicacious effluvium
I skulked the tornado 
I looked up at an all green sky 
In a startled collapse I spit 
My saliva metamorphosed into a cacophony of winged field mice
That pummeled and divided a polyester piñata 
It spilled forth uplifting phrases my enemies had spoken of me
On shards of paper that I stuffed in the pocket
Of my canteen case. I was low on toilet tissue
My TV had a flat tire but I lost the perfect baseball bat I needed to cut it into ninths
I jumped the mud between the pick-up sticks and gassed the noodles from their hat
The glowing shadow unraveled itself
From a cross-legged epiphany
I fell awake and laughed at the sadness 
of a herniated barricade 
beneath the most delicious lightbulb placard

Once upon a time