In Conversation

Shrugged Shoulders He lies to the camera with the confidence of a man who’s never been told no. They know he’s lying, we know he’s lying, he knows he’s lying. We shrug our shoulders once again and move on. Her voice polished like the golden cross emblazoned on her chest, the perfect spokeswoman gurgling up …

What if We Just Call the Whole Thing Off A toad sits like a plum beneath a curled leaf waiting out the rain in captive. The purple of him you simply havent seen before. The Pentagon threatens to keep the pope held hostage like the French did – until things are ironed out in Iran. …

Bad Bunny Thrusting and Spinning Signs on Beach Blvd I could have sworn I saw Bad Bunny thrusting and spinning signs for a mattress store on Beach Boulevard. I mean, I know he doesn’t need the money, but still, it makes sense, the thrusting and the mattresses. I mean really, how many mattresses do you …

No Such Thing As Karma On The F Train To Queens Or Anywhere Else When the tall thin black kid with the skateboard steps back to give me the open subway seat, I make eye contact, nod thanks and never think it has anything to do with my nearly forty years commuting between Brooklyn and …

Coon Dick Toothpicks and Other Political Atrocities The batshit crazy coming out of Washington doesn’t let up for a second. I’m tired of hearing about it, though it seems I’m intent on continuing to comment upon it. I’ve had enough of my eighty-year-old live-in father-in-law, Milt, offering his Fox News perspective. Finally, I just told …

The American Joke The moon is a nudist. Up there nightly blameless and innocent, showing us everything. The moon is a stripper giving us the slow reveal forever w/ a miniature brain & nerves w/ its internal organs fully preserved The moon is 520,000,000 million years old or just a few thousand. An ass in …

At the Public Pool “My dog is so stupid,” this man in a checkered shirt points and says to the guy beside him. I look over to a patch of grass and see a scraggly little dog chasing its own tail. Then I see the man’s kid in the shallow end of the pool, making …

I Changed the Shower Curtain Liner Today 1 I am as alive as the slime in the bathtub, too long unwashed, and so hidden behind two vinyl curtains because one might not be enough, might allow a glimpse, however filtered and hazy, of my deteriorating essence. Thankfully the filter works both ways, provides a comforting …

Like Falling Rain When evil-doing comes like falling rain, nobody calls out ‘stop!—Bertolt Brecht “Don’t start with the good old things, but the bad new ones,” he said in my dream last night. So, here’s to Amazon warehouses, banks foreclosing our neighbors, to poets writing grant proposals, and congress collecting unearned pay. To killer drones …

Things to Say When You Have Nothing to Say by Kerry Trautman (Roadside Press) Kerry Trautman’s Things to Say When You Have Nothing to Say is a collection that quietly dismantles its own title. These poems are anything but empty — they teem with observation, sensory immediacy, and a restless, searching intelligence that turns the …