forgotten or unacknowledged

(tomatoes, potatoes)

A poem.


television permits us its
unassailable truths
as escapism:

generic hygienic,
purposeless youth
earn first-meets and whole Fridays with
ten-star heartbreaks in waiting –
despite the real world red flags that
demoing all your breakfast doth bring –


and they look into their eyes as the whales coo

and a fight ensues,
because each assumes what side of the tracks
the other derives,
as often occurs at the end of act two


and he’s home
middle-aging
with the before-bed Pringles in his hand contemplating,
“when was the last time that ever happened to me?”

the good parts, he means,
forgetting or not acknowledging what’s already been.


broadband

A poem.


i don’t want to get out of bed
and face the cold, foreboding wild
of this sunny spring day.
a walk to a pleasant lake
is just two blocks away
but i need to be sure i look ok.
to be down is to be alone
with nowhere to go but home.

so i waste away behind barred blinds,
my head buried in sand.
i check my email frequently
to see if i still exist,
if only in a broadband.


Original photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels.com.

food insecurity is gut-wrenching,

not losing a celebrity chef surprise

A poem.


the poor
the needy
the starving children in
your city

do not want your
shrunken, crusty,
38-day past due remains
of sugar-free cotton candy
Sobeys,

unopened in transparent packaging
at the bottom of a dirty onion bin called
a hamper
looking like unsold Funkos of the villain from
Liv Tyler’s Armageddon:
an impulse Christmas gift if ever you’ve seen –

“but it’s better than drinking your own pee!”
putting to question how the homeless population,
lacking proper hydration,
gained access to Waterworld levels of hydro-filtration without
Federal intervention
when my working wife won’t even gift me
a Japanese home man-milking contraption.


no Sir.
this is why the Food Bank demands cash.


so do middle-schoolers whose lunch is a Quarter-Pounder.
maybe we should be more concerned with
the elderly percentile.


Original photo by MART PRODUCTION on Pexels.com.

nostalgia’s in atm

ou, une merde chaude par une journée froide

A poem.


her back is to the separating wall,
left thigh over right
under the table at the unhappily married
middle-aged debutante ball,

long faces and all,
and instead of a trombone in her lap it’s her phone
and i’m not leering from around a beam.
this time.


what’s the use of this personification
except to hold on to it for later?
drooling through my pillow case at the open mystery
under those Lululemon Kirkland Signature duperies,
clasping fruitlessly to post-workout legs
like plastic cheese bricks to hot broccoli reeds


that, again, no one’s forcing me to eat

and being fun & flirty and platonic won’t do us good either
because you’re another non-native English speaker,
and i’ve changed little carnally in twenty-five years.
i’d much rather just non-verbally roll around on the floor
but it isn’t my middle-school Québec exchange anymore.
it’s life.



it’s life.
but apparently nostalgia’s all in at the mome.


Featured image “Impression of ‘Lonely woman embracing body in morning’ by Alena Shekhovtcova” illustrated by the author.

being the beta man

A poem.


when i’m on the clock,

i’ll talk back to a manager
no problem,
if i think it’ll get me anywhere

or not in trouble
or teased by female staff


but i won’t tell the guy
sitting in my reserved seat at the
movie theatre to
move over
please.

some words are too much trouble
for too little reward,
save my father and i getting
what we paid for.

he won’t say anything either.


Original photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com.