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 a fantasy unrelated
to any semblance of reality.
We make jokes about them,
the way people joke about
a dimwitted cousin
or a leak in the roof—
ha ha, very funny,
until that cousin gets a gun,
until the ceiling caves in.
Everyone knows—
the bartender, the small-town mayor
the heartsick banjo player,
the bus driver, the day laborer,
teacher, factory worker, landscaper,
barista, barber, your neighbor,
We all know, knowing is easy here.
Doing is hard. So we shrug, make jokes,
pretend the cracks in the wall are part
of the décor and truly let the light shine in.
The streetlights buzz their nervous hum,
in this haunted place we live
in this country we let happen.
We smile, we nod, hands in pockets,
walking perpetual streets of shrugged
shoulders, waiting for someone else
to throw the first punch.
Last year (2025) was a busy year for Danny Shot with two books published: a collection of poems, The Jersey Slide in November by CavanKerry Press and his prose, collected in Night Bird Flying in February by Roadside Press. 2026 finds Danny marching in the streets and channeling Bertolt Brecht on the page. WORKS was published in 2018 by CavanKerry Press. Danny is Poet in Residence at the Hoboken Museum. Danny Shot was the longtime publisher
and editor of Long Shot arts and literary magazine, which he founded along with Eliot Katz in 1982 in New Brunswick, NJ. More information can be found on his website: dannyshot.com
